Harry Potter and the Olde Rituels
by feauxen
Summary: The date is 31 July 2027, and Harry is turning 47. Life has settled in the past few years, perhaps too much for his tastes. But what plots lurk in the shadows of Harry's life, waiting to stir things up again? Beware the ancient, hidden secrets of unknown potential, for even the knowledgeable must take great care when handling them…
1. Chapter 1

_**The date is 31 July 2027, and Harry is turning 47. Life has settled in the past few years, perhaps too much for his tastes. But what plots lurk in the shadows of Harry's life, waiting to stir things up again? Beware the ancient, hidden secrets of unknown potential, for even the knowledgeable must take great care when handling them…**_

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 **A/N: This is my new idea which has been bugging me enough to merit a story. The summary is above, for those who thought the title was more interesting than the summary, but changed their mind in the last five seconds. Anyway, I don't own rights, nor do I earn money, and I hope you enjoy my creation. Cheers!**

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Harry Potter was quite preoccupied. He had few things consciously on his mind, but he managed to be preoccupied anyway. As he walked slowly from his house to the edge of its wards, perhaps 30 meters away, he managed to cover three different topics, none of any real significance. He didn't even have new thoughts on any of these topics, he simply thought of them out of habit, and a small amount of annoyance.

 _Why are these wards so necessary?_ His train of thought began. _I wish I could apparate and disapparate from inside my own home, like normal people._ And he was off. From there it slowly got worse. _I wish I wasn't so famous. That's the real problem here. I have a hard enough time living a normal life outside of my home that the only way I can have one inside my home is to hide. To hide from everyone, save close friends and family._ Here his thoughts took a slight upturn, although that upturn was tainted by years of irritation. _At least my birthday party won't be in some warded off, hidden area. This party will be at a proper house, that doesn't need those things. But I really do wish I could live like that all the time. That would be the most ideal._

At this point, Harry was nearly to the wards, and became preoccupied with thoughts of his destination. Apparation required concentration, after all, and he found that focusing for a few seconds before the final act of turning on his heel and disappearing helped, even if it wasn't necessary anymore. What Harry didn't know about, however, were the people just beyond his wards, waiting for him. They were hidden in ways most could never hope to understand, and many of the rest never would anyway. You couldn't blame him for missing them.

And yet.

Harry wasn't caught completely unawares. He rarely was, although he had only the vaguest of notions why. All he knew was that he could feel danger, in the most intangible and indescribable way, a split second before he was actually in danger. Combine this with the reflexes of an auror of many years, and one was hard-pressed to fully catch him off guard. This time, however, his instinct didn't serve him very well. He was focused on something other than guarding himself, and when his concentration shattered, all hell broke loose.

As soon as he crossed the ward line, he ducked. He barely gave the motion a second thought, and gave only slightly more thought to the motion of drawing his wand and tucking into a ball as he rolled suddenly to the left. These actions had saved him enough times that he trusted them, and performed them automatically. He was quite disoriented internally, however. His focus had gone from the Burrow, a place of safety and ideals he wished after, to a combat maneuver in no time flat. As he completed the roll, still mostly on autopilot, he put up a shield after sending off three random stunners. His roll hadn't taken him near enough any cover that he could hide, and he still didn't even know what he would be hiding from. Staying so still was a mistake. He could never have known it, and on such a timescale, human reactions fail at a fundamental level, but being still for the minutia of a second ended the battle. The experienced ambushers weren't expecting his dodge of their initial attack, nor his counterattack. But they had seen such actions before, and in the time it took for Harry to roll to the side, attack at random, and shield, a counterattack was launched by the most grizzled veteran of the group. Despite his shield, Harry dropped like a sack of potatoes.

* * *

Slowly, warily, the attackers gathered around the fallen man, not daring to drop their concealment spells. None knew how he had anticipated an attack, and all were wary of a fake-out, unlikely as it may have been. Then one of them broke the silence.

"He's out like a light. I know because my spell certainly hit him, and it never leaves a conscious victim, even if they were shielded," the one who had successfully taken Harry down stated with confidence.

"Are you sure you hit him?" asked another, "I was sure my first shot was on target as well, but that one very clearly missed!"

"Calm down, I know I hit him. See?" the first speaker dropped their concealment, carefully pointed their wand, and cast a spell that only his companions could have recognized. As a result, Harry's body rose like a marionette, swaying slightly after being lifted so suddenly. Harry showed no reaction. All of the ambushers knew that spell also caused a major burst of pain. Nothing real, just a sensation. And yet, Harry had shown no reaction, despite the impossibility of such a feat when conscious.

"Alright, point made, you can put him down now," said a third voice, this one female. As she spoke, she and the others slowly dropped their concealment spells, revealing five individuals, wearing nondescript robes, standing in a rough arc around Harry's unconscious body as it fell back to the ground.

"So…are we going to continue as planned? Nothing seems to have gone wrong," Another female speaker asked.

"First we have to move him, the spell that missed him could have triggered the wards as an attack, and we need to be careful," the first speaker said, "I'll need all of you to help with this."

The five of them all nodded, understanding perfectly. They had planned to move him, of course, even if the urgency of doing so had increased. Vaguely Greek chanting began to fill the air, as the ambushers moved to complete a circle. Each person pointed their wand at the person to their left, and a pentagon of yellow light began to form in the space between them. Once this happened, the chanting slowed, then stopped. The pentagon remained as the first man spoke once more.

"He's a celebrity, and although we don't know his private face, in public he seems indifferent to his fame. Knowing the stories of his youth, this attitude is understandable, and we should proceed accordingly."

Everyone present knew what he meant. This ritual, while convenient, relied heavily on the intent of all involved. They each figured how they would compensate their intent for Harry's unconscious will and personality.

As the ritual continued, the chant started up again, this time in a more familiar dialect of Latin. The members pointed their wands at the person next to the person on their left this time, forming a star shape. After this, each began to do something different. One waved his wand around, drawing shapes within the pentagon and star. Another pointed her wand into the air, slowly creating a web in the air, which Harry might have said looked like priori incantatem, had he been awake to see it. The web reinforced all of the glowing lines it touched, solidifying them. A third seemed to be casting a dedicated defensive barrier, reinforcing it as the ritual progressed. The fourth participant stood, ready. He appeared to be the backup, in case one of the others failed at the difficult task set before them.

The final ambusher, the grizzled one who had hit Harry with his spell, stood focused on one thing only; the subject of their ambush and who he was. The others took care of the rest, for the most part, even as in the back of his mind, he took some of their burden. But his conscious mind was focused on Harry. He built the whole of Harry's personality as he knew it, fitting the image of a celebrity into the plan for the ritual. Then, as the ritual reached a high point, he raised his arm. And pointed it directly at Harry.

At this point, everyone else stopped what they were doing. They weren't necessary anymore, unless their part of the ritual failed. The grizzled man spoke in a strange tone of voice, and his words were incomprehensible to everyone present. He spoke for precisely seven minutes about exactly what he knew, even though he himself couldn't understand his words.

And then everything _shifted_.

* * *

Where they were, few knew. Many more knew or guessed certain things about it. One certainty they all had was that the most difficult part was still ahead of them. Here, everyone was half conscious. Everyone but Harry.

That didn't make handling him any easier.

Immediately, things went wrong. They all felt a separation. On further investigation, the separation was important, related to their plan. But only the grizzled veteran knew exactly what it was.

He wasn't sure he could fix it.

Rapidly willing change, he broke all of the rules for travel in this place as they knew them. This plan had to succeed. But why…oh yes.

Failure. He had failed. Harry was gone. But who was…

They were deposited on a deserted island in the middle of the Caribbean. That wasn't where they wanted to be.

* * *

Harry slowly rose into consciousness. His breathing didn't change. His eyes didn't twitch behind their lids. He remembered being attacked, losing. That meant carefully waking up, attempting to hear what his general surroundings were, before bursting as much wandless magic as he could in every direction that even might have an enemy. Only then would he move. But he couldn't hear much. It sounded as though he was alone in a room. Wall piercing spells it was then, to be safe. He silently thanked his auror training for its torturous thoroughness. Then he burst out four 90º angle wall piercing spells designed to temporarily debilitate an enemy. He had 15 seconds. Jumping off the ground, unconsciously casting a lighting spell to fill the darkness, he waved his hand at the door, opening it. He rushed out; guard up to see…a street. The street was quite normal, by wizarding standards, if you ignored the cringing people in a 30 foot radius, and the others staring at them.

"What's going on here?" Harry demanded, confused beyond belief. He was certain he had been ambushed, captured, and that had been near his house.

"You tell me!" someone shouted back, outside the radius, "They all just folded over in pain!"

At this, the people began to collapse, gasping breaths of relief. That hadn't been 15 seconds. Harry must have been hit hard. Pushing that thought, aside, he went to the nearest collapsed person, pulling out his wand. HIS WAND! How did he still have his wand? Just what had happened after he was knocked unconscious? He stared, shocked.

He was pulled from his thoughts when the man who had shouted back at him walked up and asked, "Are you alright? Whatever it was, it seems to have worn off. And, if you're any indication, only affected the outdoors in a small radius."

Harry, still slightly stunned, replied, "Yeah…I'm fine." He then bent down to check on the person he stood next to, waving his wand in the familiar motions. Vitals, magic levels, all normal for having been hit by his debilitating hex, if perhaps a bit closer to a normal person's than usual.

"Well, nothing seems too out of the ordinary, other than some slightly scrambled magic and elevated respiratory activity," he reported.

"You can tell that?" the man asked.

"I had…basic healer training. I can't do much more than tell what's wrong and fix simple things. As is, rest is probably the best option; St. Mungo's would probably just say the same." Harry briefly considered telling the man about his auror training, but decided to keep erring on the side of caution, in case a very elaborate ruse was in effect. Unlikely, given that he had his wand, but not impossible. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! As Alastor always used to say. Even then, look how he ended up.

The man was checking the person's pulse by hand, asking how they felt, and getting a quiet response. "I can't tell as well as you, but it sounds like you're right," he said, "in my unprofessional opinion, I'll defer to your diagnosis."

"Yeah, I'll just check the others then," Harry said before doing just that. All of them had reduced effects from the hex, and none answered any questions unusually for someone unexpectedly attacked on the street. They seemed like normal people. So what was going on here?

After checking everyone over, Harry addressed them all as a group. "Right, so it would appear that whatever caused you temporary pain has done nothing more serious than slightly scramble your magic. You may not even have trouble casting spells, but taking it easy for the rest of the day is advised. Other than that, continue about your business, if you don't have any questions." He didn't expect any, having had a short conversation with each of the 12 people caught in his hex. And he was right. The man who had helped him investigate walked up though.

"Well, I don't believe I caught your name, I'm Franklin, Franklin Jennings. And you?"

Harry was caught off guard. "Uh…Perry, Perry Hotter," he said without thinking. Then he cringed. Hard. That was certainly the way he introduced himself most, never needing to introduce himself by his actual name, but that was his bedroom name. Ginny had made it up. While drunk!

The man stared. "So…you're muggle born too, I take it? That isn't a very…wizarding…name."

Harry thought very quickly. "No…it's German. H-a-u-t-e-r. And yes, a muggle name."

"I see," the man said, "that makes a bit of sense. More than I could make of it anyway."

"Yes, it's not exactly a…common name," Harry replied, "At any rate, what do you make of what happened here?"

"Frankly, I'm at a loss," Franklin replied, before flinching a bit, "no pun intended."

"What? Oh, yes. Your name. Well I don't know either. I've never heard of a spell that affects an area like that so specifically, or wears off so quickly. And who on Earth cast the damn thing?" Harry wondered aloud.

"Once again, I'm at a loss. I probably don't have as much experience as a trained healer, I work a desk job at the ministry."

"What department?" Harry asked, still attempting to trip someone up and get to the bottom of the mystery.

"Hmm? Oh, goblin liaison, I file and edit reports. Not many spells involved in that. No interesting ones, to be certain, not since the last war," Franklin said without hesitation.

Harry knew that such positions existed, even the aurors had report filers, although it was a rotational position unless someone was too injured to do anything else. Or unless someone was being punished. "Well, I don't know what to say. Maybe mention this at work, to the DMLE. They could investigate it," Harry suggested.

"Yeah, maybe. I suppose this is where we part, then, unless you'd like to come with."

Harry didn't think visiting the department he worked for in whatever version of reality this was would be a good idea until he knew more. "No, I have a pretty urgent engagement that I'm running up on, after dealing with this mess. Good luck!"

"Yeah, same to you," Franklin replied, before turning on the spot and disappearing.

That was odd. Ever since the war, the ministry had been protected from even employee apparation. Maybe he'd headed home, to floo in. Even that was more secure, but it was at least plausible. Why was everything so plausible? Ruses always had holes, if one looked hard enough, but this one didn't have any.

Except.

It hit Harry like a truck. The realization struck him so hard he nearly fell over.

No one knew who he was. Franklin had even asked for his name.

This had to be a ruse. No one on the street knew who the Boy Who Lived was.

* * *

After realizing this, Harry simply wandered for some time. He enjoyed the feeling of normality. He'd wished for it so many times, and though this may not have even been a real world, he enjoyed it as much as he could. After all, the next step was escape. That could wait, this particular ruse had no pressing matters to deal with.

After wandering aimlessly for a few blissful hours, Harry had also figured out where he was. Business had slowly taken over his mind, out of pure habit. He had noticed small incongruities that confirmed it wasn't the real place, but it was meant to be a small country wizarding section of a village he'd been to once before. He couldn't remember the name, but he remembered enough details of the areas he'd fought in to see the differences. No scars, for one. Most obvious things would have been fixed by magic anyway, but he remembered a sign that had been moved after being knocked down, when he stuck around for questioning and saw the repair wizards at work. He didn't know why, which had helped cement the detail in his mind. But now he was ready for the first test. Judging from the quality of the environment he was in, and the detailed personalities he'd encountered, it wouldn't work, but it was always a starting point. Picturing the woods just outside of his wards, he turned on his heel and vanished with a sharp _crack!_

Harry appeared in a wooded area. It even looked like what he had pictured. How interesting, he hadn't seen that before. Must be a very advanced illusion to include a feature like that. But there was one thing he knew for certain, and confirmed with a few steps in the right direction. The wards of his house weren't where they should be. They ordinarily hid everything out of the ordinary, namely his entire yard and house, from anyone on the outside, in addition to a few more actively defensive features. But after stepping within the bounds he knew were his wards, no yard appeared, no house.

Having confirmed his suspicions, and with his curiosity piqued by the new illusory effect he was seeing, Harry tried a different tactic. This time, he pictured Diagon Ally. As soon as he appeared, he quickly asked a passerby a question, noting that people could also be mimicked in this illusion with startling ease.

"'Scuse me, but have you got the time? I'm running a bit close and I forgot my watch," he started, hoping to get no response, to have exited the effective range of personalities in the illusory people. No luck, however. The stranger pulled out a watch and answered without hesitation.

"'Bout half past 10, you best hurry. Whatever meeting you got ain't likely to wait for you. Hah!" the man chuckled a bit as he walked away.

Harry was stumped. He had travelled a total of around 300 kilometers, all around Britain, unless he remembered the location of the village wrong. But his house was still a little less than 100 kilometers away from London, and Diagon Ally. That was a huge area for an illusion. Having to combat them from inside on occasion kept the auror department up to date on illusory techniques, and as far as they knew, the village he had begun in was about the limit of the amount of detail that could go into an illusion. The people alone should have taken up more power than an illusion could have. He'd talked to several as he wandered around, and everyone had responded like a normal person. He was willing to bet the same was true here, although he wasn't really up to checking. He halfheartedly greeted a few people, and even talked briefly with a shop owner, and all confirmed his suspicions. Harry wasn't sure what to think anymore.

Then, an idea struck him. It was several hundred kilometers away, highly detailed, and definitely impossible to mimic in an illusion. The wards alone were an impossibility, and even if that rule had been ignored like the others, no one knew as much as he did about the castle. Harry was going back to Hogwarts. He turned on his heel, picturing the front of the three broomsticks.

When he arrived, he didn't bother to check inside. He rushed off to Honeydukes, wondering why he hadn't just disapparated there. When he reached the shop, he cast a quick disillusionment spell on himself, before sneaking inside and entering the secret passage, being sure not to move anything in sight of other people or bump one of the customers. Once inside, he began the walk, casting ward detection spells as he went. Auror training covered enough ward breaking for him to get by. The passage was regular enough that he could find his way by their light without need of a lumos.

Suddenly, Harry stopped dead. His ward detection charms had hit something. Something that _blared_ power. Harry was so surprised he nearly stopped breathing. But then he remembered how to analyze wards. Surely the wards of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry couldn't be mimicked exactly by anything. Surely they…

COULD?!

Harry began to panic. Nothing could mimic wards. He would know. No one was even close to developing that kind of magic. The department of mysteries may not say much, but they did say that, which meant, most assuredly, that no one was even close. When the department of mysteries stopped claiming that no one was close, it meant someone was distantly aware of a theoretical version that could take decades to develop. So HOW?

Casting a few more charms, Harry only grew more confused. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, the wards had been re-updated to a state similar to, though not quite as extreme as, his sixth year. These wards were different. He had never analyzed Hogwarts' wards in a different state than the post battle one he was so familiar with. And yet, if he had to guess, these wards were from a pre-battle state, before even his sixth year. The earliest they could be from was his fifth year! What magic could do THAT?

NO BLOODY MAGIC COULD DO THAT! Impossibilities piling onto each other, Harry began to doubt his hypothesis. But if not an illusion, then what? It had to be magic. These wards, the state of the outside world, even his bloody house, weren't replicated quite right. The only normal thing was the people. Even the people were more detailed than he could believe. That alone rang alarm bells, if normal ones. Detailed people were potentially possible. Not likely, but potentially possible. And yet, next to everything else, they were the most believable thing he'd found!

Eventually, Harry decided that the only course available to him was more investigation. What else could he do? Casting a few spells to protect his identity, some of them quite complex, he prepared to enter the wards. Whatever he found, it wouldn't do to project his identity. Being what the enemy expected was rarely a good idea. He even shifted the bone structure of his face and tidied his hair. Spells were capable of tidying his hair, but he usually chose not to, in remembrance of his father.

After several minutes of spell work, Harry looked only vaguely like himself. His scar was charmed unnoticeable. His face was reshaped. His hair was neat and tidy, though in the curly side. His eyes, he left untouched. Even Ginny hadn't recognized him looking like this, until looking long and hard. No one but his wife, and perhaps his friends, who he would want to recognize him, would connect his current face to his normal one. He may not be Teddy, or Tonks, but he had passed auror training, and did know how to change his appearance.

Confident that even if forced to lower his disillusionment, he would be disguised, Harry stepped through the wards. No longer needing to search for the wards, he cast a lumos, and walked the rest of the passage, wondering, even dreading what he might find. So far, nothing had informed him about where he was, how he had gotten there, or indeed what properties the place he'd found himself in possessed. The most he knew was that comprehension eluded him more vigorously with every new find. Perhaps the castle itself would be different. He had no reason to believe it would, aside from optimism. Harry was running a tad low on optimism, by this point.

At last he reached the castle. Raising his wand to tap on the inside of the statue, he hesitated. He wasn't sure he wanted to continue. Hogwarts was no longer home, but it had been. And it still was a place of solace, of sanctuary. He had always found a way to return there, at least once a year. Hogwarts was a friend, and Harry wasn't sure he could take this friend being twisted like everything else in this illusion. Or whatever it was.

And yet.

Harry knew he needed to continue. He knew it was necessary. He was even still a bit curious, through all the caution his findings had placed on him. So he tapped the statue.

"Dissendum."

 _Here goes nothing._

And once again, Harry Potter entered Hogwarts. His first destination was obvious. The Room of Requirement was such complicated magic that no one knew how to _cast_ the stuff anymore, let alone imitate it. And so he headed to the seventh floor, where the Room had settled back in after the Battle of Hogwarts. If this was even a post-battle Hogwarts. Harry didn't want to continue that line of reasoning, it was too disturbing. So he walked to the tapestry of the trolls, and walked back and forth three times, imagining a room where he could finally relax and stop puzzling the damned mysteries of this place.

And then, a door appeared. A very familiar door. This was the door to his bedroom.

Harry tapped the door with his hand.

Harry scanned the door with his wand.

Harry found that this door, almost beyond a shadow of a doubt, was the door to his bedroom. He very hesitantly opened the door, fearing what he would find inside. He looked.

He closed the door, curiosity sated. Then he sank to the ground, defeated. The Room of Requirement confirmed that the well and truly impossible was impossible. There was simply no way that could be true. If one put the facts together, the evidence didn't point to anything possible. Nothing but…well, even that was impossible. He had only heard of it in a muggle series on the telly. No wizard seriously believed in—

Harry felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked up, uncomprehending. Then he curled up and moaned. He had found something more impossible than all of the other things put together. Even the Room paled in comparison to the impossibility of this one.

Harry was looking up at the wizard who had tripped over his invisible, collapsed body.

Harry was looking up at Albus Dumbledore.

 **A/N: I know you hate me. I love you too. The chapter really couldn't end anywhere else, as far as I could see. No other point in the story has quite as much impact, although a few will come close. Anyway, what I'm curious about in the meantime is what the people think. I know what's going on. You have to guess. I'm not trying to rub it in. A new chapter explaining nearly everything will be up in a week. In the meantime, I hope for reviews. I have an…interesting way of incentivising them, I think. The story will go on regardless of reviews. But I want your theory of what's going on before you continue with it. Yes, you. I'm talking to the person reading these words, hoping for an explanation, trying to come up with one of your own. Before you continue, even if you get here after the next chapter, I want to know what you think has happened to Harry. That's all. Just type something believable in the review box, and then continue as you normally would. If the next chapter isn't out yet, I sincerely apologize.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Disclaimer: Disclaimers are a myth. So is my ownership of material I don't even earn money from.**

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Albus Dumbledore. Headmaster of Hogwarts for who knows how many years, Transfiguration Professor before that. A personal friend to Harry, who had slowly but surely gotten to know the man. A flawed man, but a beacon of the best of intentions. Killed in 1997. And tripping over Harry's prone body.

What?

Harry didn't have the energy to get upset anymore. He was simply confused. He barely even noticed as his disillusionment was removed. He did vaguely notice that the counter spell was specific enough to miss his bodily transfigurations. And then he heard a voice he'd not heard for over 30 years.

"Well who might you be?"

That was enough. Harry didn't want to answer the question. Harry curled up into a ball and moaned.

"Are you okay? How did you get here?"

Harry still didn't answer. He felt a faint scanning spell seek after his injuries, and find only a bruised side. Then he felt another spell, whose purpose escaped him. Harry remained curled up in a ball. How was any of this possible? Who was capable of pulling something like this off? Who knew enough to attempt to mimic Albus Dumbledore, dead for decades? Who was crazy enough to try?

And then another solution presented itself. A perfect solution. A solution that seemed to fit all of the facts. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had died in an ambush. This was the afterlife. This, whatever it was, was the next great adventure that Dumbledore had spoken of so long ago. It was almost heartening news. He could stop trying to figure everything out. He might even be able to have fun, new kinds of fun he'd never been able to experience before. The possibilities were almost endless.

"…told you he couldn't have run off, Headmaster, I placed a tracking spell on him and he hasn't moved. What I'm more interested in is how he managed to get in here."

"Hogwarts does have a great many secrets, Albus. He may have used one of them, or even be one of them. It's quite hard to tell."

The voices had reached Harry, and this time, feeling a little better about himself, having at least reached a conclusion, Harry looked up at them.

"Greetings, Headmaster. It's been a while," Harry began, hardly noticing the increasingly puzzled looks on the two men's faces, "I must say, this is the place I expected to find you. Hogwarts is always a safe bet," Harry smiled placidly as he sat up.

The two men looked down on him, seeming to each be trying to figure a response. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning. Who are you?" asked Dumbledore.

This stopped Harry short. "I'm…Perry," he said, suspicions returning, "Perry Hauter. I suppose…you don't know me then?"

"No, we don't, Mr. Hauter. You quite suddenly appeared in our castle in the middle of summer, and profess to know me. Yet we know nothing of you. Does that help you understand the situation?" the other man asked. Harry looked more closely at him, really noticing him for the first time. Who was this? He did seem vaguely familiar, but Harry had been speaking to Dumbledore when he'd said—

 _No._ It couldn't be. Harry remembered where he'd seen this man before. Harry had been twelve at the time. But how would Headmaster Dippet fit into any of his theories? Harry hadn't even known the man. Harry looked back at Dumbledore. And then everything clicked into place. Harry wasn't dead, as best as he could tell. Dumbledore wasn't the headmaster. Dumbledore's beard hadn't even changed color yet. From his low angle, and in his distressed state of mind, Harry had failed to notice red hair where he'd come to expect silver. How had he managed that?

One thing was clear, however. Harry likely wasn't dead. Harry probably wasn't even in an illusion, this was far too complicated. Harry had traveled back in time nearly 100 years.

* * *

Far away, both in kilometers and years, five people gathered themselves, performed a familiar ritual, and vanished without a trace.

* * *

In a more familiar time and place, many party guests at the Burrow were growing restless. Harry was now five hours late to his own birthday party, and no one knew what to do. Harry wasn't usually five minutes late, let alone hours. The Weasleys were all in a fuss, Ginny most of all. She'd flooed their house, but gotten no response. Everyone who would answer was here. Everyone but Harry. If he'd managed to get himself into trouble again, she'd personally take it out of his hide. He may have had a 'saving people thing,' and he may even have been an auror. But that was no excuse for the trouble her husband always found himself in!

"Have you heard anything?"

"Ginny, if I'd heard anything, you'd be the first to know. He's your husband, after all," Hermione said, more than a little exasperated. Hermione, also having an auror for a husband, one who was partnered with Harry, was thinking along the same lines as Ginny. The only difference was that _she_ wasn't nagging anyone. Hermione was doing what she did best: thinking. Harry wasn't the type to miss his birthday party for anything, not after all the missed opportunities he'd had when he was staying at the Dursley's. So where was he? The options weren't great. He could be in deep trouble, although according to Ron they didn't have any dangerous work currently. And other than that…well there weren't too many other explanations. Harry had changed over the years, and Hermione suspected the fame was wearing on him, but she'd always gotten the feeling that he truly enjoyed his birthday parties anyway, since no one at them saw him as anyone other than "just Harry," as he liked to put it. So where the devil could he be, having no reason to be in danger and no reason to avoid his birthday party? Hermione wracked her brain, desperately trying to think of something. Five hours was a long time to go missing with no word from the world without notice, especially on your birthday. Hermione hoped that wherever Harry was, he at least wasn't in trouble.

"Everyone, an owl's just come with a letter from Harry!"

Hermione's thoughts were jarred from their previous track. A letter? That probably meant he wasn't in trouble, at least.

"What's it say?" someone shouted. Chaos was beginning to reign at word from Harry, and Ron, the one who'd received the letter from the owl had to fend everyone off by shouting them silent. His mother set an impressive example, but Ron was an athletic auror. And in the end, he won.

"Lay off everyone! I'm going to read it aloud, so SHUT IT!"

Everyone fell silent. Ron had his ways of getting a message across. Then he began to read. As he did, Hermione wasn't even sure what to think. Only one thing seemed truly certain; Harry was in a serious mess. Again.

And he seemed to need their help.

* * *

Harry was in shock yet again. He'd discounted the idea that he'd traveled back in time, it made no sense. It made even less sense than his idea that this was some kind of illusion. Time turners were only good for a day or so of travel, and as such, most wizards, even the ones who had heard of time turners, never really considered time travel as a possibility. The magic that made a time turner tick was too limited, and didn't work in the forward direction. Yet here he was, talking with a man who'd been dead for decades, earlier in his life than Harry had ever known the him. If this was possible, why didn't more people do it? Could it have to do with the people that attacked him?

Harry slowly came to the realization through his musings that both Dumbledore and Dippet were staring at him, waiting for a response. He struggled to recall the last thing said to him. Oh yes, did he understand the situation better now?

Did he ever.

"Yes…that helps quite a bit, Headmaster. I suppose I was quite mistaken about several things. I've been…lost, for a while, I suppose you could say, and I fear I may be going crazy. I apologize."

"So how are you familiar with me then? I have certainly never met you in any official capacity," Dippet asked.

Harry thought quickly. "You're the Headmaster of Hogwarts. Not exactly a secret who you are, and Albus Dumbledore is a recognizable face. He wowed plenty of people in his time here the first time around, and hasn't exactly stopped. So when Dumbledore goes to fetch someone about an internal Hogwarts security issue, I have a reasonable idea who he's going to get. My familiarity I expressed toward you was due to some personal issues I've been having recently…I apologize." He figured that would do for an explanation until he figured out more thoroughly what exactly was going on.

"I see. Of course, you bring up another issue, your presence here. You didn't disturb the wards on entry, despite no longer being a student here. Normally, in troubled times such as these, I would receive notice of an unexpected visitor such as yourself crossing the ward lines. How did you avoid that?" Dippet wasn't a fool, no matter that Tom Riddle had been able to pull the wool over his eyes. Tom Riddle was a poor measure of one's intelligence and gullibility, due to his charisma and charm.

"I…was being cautious. I awoke earlier today in a situation I never expected to be in and wanted to avoid being recognized, even on the Hogwarts grounds. I see that my fears were unfounded, but one can't be too careful," Harry said, attempting to keep his response as vague as possible, in hope that the details would either fill themselves in, or be unnecessary.

"Too true, I hear Grindelwald has been stepping up his game recently, taking more ground in Germany, and possibly looking for muggle involvement in his crusade. I presume you were caught up in something like that?"

"Yes," Harry said, remembering that his name allegedly came from Germany, "I was visiting family. When he attacked, I thought the sky was falling. I just barely made it out, and I think I was the only one. My family…their whole town…" Harry brought memories of friends lost in the war he had seen action in to the forefront of his mind in an attempt to sell his grief. Unbidden, he discovered tears falling from his eyes, and blinked in surprise. Perhaps he wasn't as recovered from their losses as he'd thought.

Pulling himself together, Harry pushed himself up from the sitting position he'd remained in for the majority of the conversation, taking his feet at last. "At any rate, I came home as soon as I could, but to me, home was always Hogwarts. Hogwarts is certainly safer, at any rate, so I decided to take shelter. Then your professor here stumbled over me, and our little encounter began."

This time Dumbledore spoke, "Do you have a specific reason to fear Grindelwald tracking you down? He may be brutal in his methods, but I would hardly expect him to track you down specifically just because you escaped his grasp, even if you killed his men to do so."

Harry thought fast again, trying to come up with a good explanation for that one. Then it came to him. "I know…private things about Grindelwald's early life he'd prefer be kept quiet. I didn't plan on talking, nor did the man in the village who told me about them. He just knew me pretty well and let them slip in conversation, before swearing me to secrecy. There's a reason Grindelwald destroyed a whole village instead of his usual tactics." Harry knew from his auror background that Grindelwald's typical methods were to imprison those who disagreed with his regime, and attempt to sway the masses before attacking, if he ever got around to attacking a village at all. Criminals who emulated bits of Grindelwald's behavior were sometimes called 'little Grindels' in the office.

Dumbledore spoke again, this time with an odd note to his voice that Harry couldn't quite place. "What information do you have on Grindelwald that he'll track you down and destroy a village over it? Is it important to the war?"

"I'd prefer not to say, if you don't mind. What I know wouldn't actually help with the war effort, and should probably remain secret for everyone's best interests. It's very private, is all, and Grindelwald wants it kept quiet for personal reasons I'll not share." In reality, what Harry knew was Grindelwald's early relationship with Dumbledore, the origin of some of Grindelwald's strongest ideals. He simply thought that was best not to mention in front of Dumbledore himself, even if it did make a good cover story. Dumbledore did look a little bit troubled, however, and Harry worried that Dumbledore might be worried that he knew exactly what he did; that Dumbledore and the most evil wizard of the time had spent a summer together, scheming. At any rate, there was nothing he could do about that.

"If you don't mind, I'm a bit more interested in how you defeated one of the strongest ward schemes known and don't seem to think much of the act," Dippet cut in, apparently satisfied with Harry's answers about Grindelwald.

"Well Headmaster, it's simpler than you might expect to fool these wards when you know what you're doing. I have a bit of ward training myself, that's even how I managed to escape Grindelwald's anti-apparation wards. As it is, the Hogwarts wards are quite vulnerable in one way you're probably quite familiar with: scale. Hogwarts has to let over a thousand students past its wards every year without harming a hair on their heads, so tricking the wards into believing I'm a young student rather than my full age was quite simple." Harry didn't mention that on analysis of the Marauder's Map, Hermione had both discovered the means the wards used to identify people that the map piggybacked off of and a way to circumvent it. So he would show up in any scans using the wards, including the Marauder's Map, as Perry Hauter. But the Marauder's Map didn't exist yet, so he shouldn't have to worry too much about that…

Unless he'd brought it with him. Damn. Another secret to keep from people. He'd taken to carrying it with him since Albus had graduated, unsure of what to actually do with it now that all of the Marauder's relatives were out of Hogwarts and had no pressing need for it. It was another connection to his father, even if Remus had done more of the arithmantic work. Heck, it was a connection to all of the Marauders, even if he did his best not to think about Pettigrew. The man may have died repaying a life debt to Harry, but that didn't make up for all he'd done in his life, in Harry's book.

"Fooling the wards is really so simple?" Dippet looked quite worried. Harry supposed he'd given the man plenty of reason to be.

"Well, you do have to know how to re-align a seven point conflux in your head and repurpose it for your own needs. Not a common talent, in my experience. But yes, if you can do that, it isn't terribly difficult to change your status in the wards' eyes. If I'm not mistaken, however, you use a similar process when modifying the wards, just without the added difficulty of doing it from the outside."

"You can re-align a seven point conflux in your head! Where on Earth did you learn to do that?" Re-aligning a seven point conflux in one's head was roughly equivalent to performing multiplication of five digit numbers _by each other_ in one's head. Possible, though the technique required great deal of time to learn. Harry understood the man's amazement.

"I can. It isn't actually so difficult, once you learn it, but the same has been said of dancing, and I really don't understand dancing at all," Harry replied, attempting to downplay his talents.

This time Dumbledore spoke up. "I do believe that Perry is correct about ward manipulation, it is a far easier field to get into than ward breaking. His feat is quite impressive indeed, but as he simply wanted to repurpose the seven point conflux, it is theoretically sound. I'm more curious what kind of profession merited learning such a skill."

This time, an answer came easily to Harry. He was getting the hang of his alleged back story. "Surviving near the front of Grindelwald's war did, that's what. I may be British, but with my family in Germany, I've been staying over there, helping anywhere I could for years now. Thank heaven for translation charms, without them staying with my family and helping out would have been very difficult indeed. But being so close to a war teaches a man things he may have hoped never to learn."

"I suppose it does," Dippet said, looking suddenly thoughtful, "I don't suppose you have much accreditation in the subject of Defense Against the Dark Arts?" the man sounded almost hopeful.

Accreditation? As an auror Harry had more than most. But he couldn't really say that decades before being trained and hired as an auror.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts? No, I suppose I don't, unless you count my O in the N.E.W.T. After school ended I was more focused on helping my family out on the continent."

Dumbledore spoke up again. "Headmaster, are you considering—

"Yes, I am considering it, Albus. Is that a problem? He fits the profile, and needs shelter."

"Wait, what profile? What are you two talking about?" Harry asked, curious and a little worried. The profiles he usually dealt with described criminals, and fitting one wasn't a good thing. Fitting a profile meant one needed an alibi and—

"Perry, I'll be direct," Dippet said.

Harry shifted uncomfortably.

"Would you like to work as our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"

* * *

 **A/N: No, the job's not cursed yet. There is something that a few of you may have noticed which doesn't fit with cannon, but I'll leave that to the next chapter, unless someone spots it and asks in a review. For reference, all changes to cannon that occur will take place as the story does, because of actions and characters that I write about. None of the off-screen changes to cannon to make it suit my fic will occur. Unless I screw up. So I'm counting on you guys to keep me to Rowling's cannon, not that there's too much overlap here. I'll be covering things that happened before or after the events of the books, so any serious canonical changes would have to go through the butterfly effect before actually having an impact. Don't worry about that too much. Yet.**

 **At any rate, you can expect one chapter or so from me every week for this story, although they won't all come out on Wednesdays. That was to give everyone a defined date that the cliffhanger would be resolved, to avoid review begging.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen.**

* * *

 **KatieMarrie, you have disabled private messages, so you leave me no choice but to suggest Death of Today by Epic Solemnity in this medium. White Squirrel is also an author whose works I quite enjoy. I read your profile and wanted to suggest something like you asked, but couldn't, because PMs are disabled. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!**

 **(And congratulations on being my first ever reviewer! I really wish more people would review my work…)**

 **Yes that was a not-so-subtle hint, everyone who chose not to review.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I claim that disclaimers are stupid, and a waste of time. The bloodsucking—I mean lawyers claim that disclaimers aid in the stopping of potential lawsuits.**

 **Unfortunately, I think they have a point.**

 **That doesn't change my lack of ownership of Rowling's intellectual property. Honestly, do I have to do this…? That was rhetorical. Why do I hear a humming in my ear that sounds like a bloodsucking insect telling me I'm wrong?**

* * *

"Would you like to work as our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"

Harry was quite a bit surprised at that. He didn't exactly have a plan, but he was well aware that changing the past was a huge no-no, even among the wizarding population who were possibly capable of such a feat. Fascinatingly, it seemed that uncertainty of what the past held would remove the taboo, because that always seemed to end in nothing actually changing, save one's newly created knowledge and understanding of events. But going back in time and becoming the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher while Albus Dumbledore was still alive didn't fit into either of those two allowed results, as far as Harry could tell. That was something he simply knew hadn't happened, something which would likely change history, and yet no law of time had kicked into effect and stopped him from doing it. So why was there a taboo, and was Harry about to find out the hard way? That didn't sound appealing at all.

"I…I'm honored you think me capable, but don't you have a professor for that position already?" Harry asked, hoping to slip out of this situation as gracefully as possible, so that he could leave places he might know what was supposed to happen. If he'd had any hope of literally turning invisible and running away like an embarrassed kid, he would have. Unfortunately, he was face to face with Albus Dumbledore, so he probably wouldn't get away with that.

"Yes, we do have Professor Merrythought, but she has expressed some weariness of late. She's done good work and has begun to feel the pull of retirement. I doubt she intended to act on it so soon, but as a golden opportunity has presented itself, I see no reason not to hire you, and let an old woman enjoy what life she has left," Dippet replied calmly.

"But surely you don't want to hire me on my word alone? I could be anyone!" Harry said, beginning to grasp at straws.

"Unless you can also change who the wards think you are, you are who you say you are: Perry Hauter. And we also know you're skilled enough at magic to slip past the wards, and very likely skilled enough to survive near a warzone, and on a battleground. You also appear to need shelter. There are many reasons to hire you as our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor," Dippet said, clearly a bit confused that Harry wasn't jumping at the opportunity.

Harry, on the other hand, was simultaneously thanking Hermione's genius and cursing his wife's drunken stupor that had led to 'Perry Hotter.' Without Hermione's analysis of the Marauder's Map, he would have been identified as Harry Potter, which almost definitely would have caused some temporal disaster. Harry wasn't sure what was worse though, the thought of a potentially universe-ending disaster, or having to go by his wife's silly bedroom name until he could figure out a way back to his time. Considering that he could have come up with a different name and hadn't, Harry decided that the bedroom name was far worse. What had possessed him to choose THAT name as an alias, of all the names he could have chosen…?

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "I personally agree with Mr. Hauter here, Headmaster. We can't just hire him. We should definitely patch up that hole in the wards he found, and if he helps with that, it will likely be much easier. But hiring a man we just met? That goes a little far."

"Nonetheless, Albus, we should give him the shelter he requires. And I don't doubt that things will become clearer by the start of the term. For now, Perry, you may stay here, and I wouldn't recommend leaving, at least until—" Dippet stiffened.

"Headmaster? What's wrong?" Dumbledore asked.

"Intruders! They seem to be only a few meters away from here! How on Earth did _they_ get in?" Dippet looked almost suspiciously at Harry as he asked this.

"I have no idea how they got in here, but if they're who I think they are, we'll need help taking them on." Harry was conflicted. He was nervous, and suspected that whoever had sent him back in time, and abducted him, had finally caught up to him. But at the same time, their presence offered the opportunity to find out just what the hell was going on.

"Sonorous," Dumbledore muttered, and his voice echoed throughout the castle, "All professors, we have intruders on the seventh floor! They are in the main northern corridor! Quietus. Help is on the way. In the meantime, I think we should head toward these intruders and attempt to limit their movement. Unless that would be unwise for some reason?" The question was clearly directed at Harry.

"None that I know of, but exercise extreme caution. They nearly got me once with a spell that ignores shields."

"Lovely. Let us go then. Headmaster, do be careful."

Dippet didn't seem to mind the warning, "Don't worry Albus, I don't doubt you're far better than me at this. Mr. Hauter probably is too, I've never been in a war, and I'm hardly as young as I once was." And with that, he walked off, leading them to the intruders he'd detected. They all pulled their wands out, readying for a fight. After a few turns, he stopped. "Unless I miss my guess, they're somewhere around here. I detected their entry just around this corner," Dippet said, pointing in front of them.

Harry wasn't quite sure what alerted him to the enemy behind them. He suspected later he may have merely remembered their earlier ambush and acted on pure instinct. Whatever it was, he jumped to the right, straight into Dumbledore, the target of the surprise attack. As they fell to the ground, he slashed his left hand wildly, his right hand, and his wand, pinned to Dumbledore. Using the motion, he conjured a wide arc of ice and sent it flying in the general direction of the attacker. This bought enough time for them both to fall to the ground, at which point Harry rolled off of Dumbledore as he freed his wand hand and conjured a shield by instinct.

Then Harry remembered his first fight, and dodged to his left just as a spell cut through the space his torso had just occupied. "Don't try to shield yourself, they've got some way of penetrating them!" he shouted, as he sent four stunners down the hall, attempting to limit the as yet unseen attacker's movement. Just as he was about to follow up with a spell right down the opening he'd left for the attacker to dodge to, however, he saw a yellow spell fly into the opening, conjuring ropes around and invisible person. Harry sent his stunner anyway, for good measure, and then looked at where Dumbledore had fallen to confirm his suspicions. He saw that he was correct. Dumbledore had recovered sufficiently to send a silent incarcerous into the gap between his spells. He wasn't the man who'd taken on Grindelwald at the height of his power for nothing.

"Thank you, Mr. Hauter. I daresay that would have gone much worse without you here," Albus said, sounding a bit shaken, "although I must ask how you knew the attack was coming. I thought for a moment you had attacked me, that was so sudden."

"I don't know…the last time I fought these guys, the same thing happened, and invisible attacker when I least expected it. I think it was just too similar a situation, and we were too close to them for there not to be an ambush," Harry replied, uncertain himself what had happened. He was used to these intuitive moments, however. In his career as an auror he'd found his instincts sharpening to an incredible degree, detecting a flash of danger just before it struck. He'd asked around the office, but no one could really explain it. He'd learned to live with it, especially as it tended to save his life in a fight. The funny thing was, it almost felt like…that.

Harry ducked and rolled, having felt it again, this time much stronger. The attack came from the other direction this time, and wasn't directed solely at him. Dumbledore was ignored, as he was still on the ground, but two spells passed through the air over his head as he rolled, and Dippet, who had been facing the attackers, conjured a shield just before another two spells reached him. Surprisingly, while one of the attacks appeared completely foiled by the shield, the other, a split second later, struck the Headmaster directly in the chest. He slowly crumpled to the ground as Harry finished rolling and stood back up, immediately lunging forward and casting the wide-angle spell he'd cast earlier, attempting to disable his opponents. He saw two shields, a strange shade of green, appear out of thin air, saw two gaps appear in the arc as two of the assailants dropped to the ground, caught off guard. As this version of the spell didn't need to travel through walls, those two would be out of the fight for a whole minute, and even when they recovered, would find their spell casting unpredictable at best.

Harry focused on the nearer of the two shields he could see, which revealed the location of an enemy. Keeping his forward momentum as he ran forward while dodging a few spells he didn't recognize, he fired several stunners, a bombardment hex, and a few cutting curses at the shield, attempting to wear it out. Surprisingly, it held up to his bombardment, but by this point, he was close enough to swing with his left fist straight through the shield. He felt it connect with something solid, and the shield went down. He knew that any shield capable of withstanding that many spells couldn't also protect from physical attacks, Hermione had instilled enough spell theory in him that he understood the basics. Well, the ones that were useful in combat anyway. He quickly finished the assailant off with a stunner, noting briefly in surprise that it was a rather young woman as she flickered back into view.

Then he turned to see whether Ron had taken the other one out, and instantly realized that he'd made a huge mistake. Ron wasn't there, like he always was in a fight, watching Harry's back. And the other green shield was still there. Harry started to dodge the inevitable spell coming his way, only to see the floor erupt from under the shielded assailant, both lifting and encasing them in solid, living stone. The green shield flickered out under the pressure of the cocoon, and a stunner neatly hit the air just above the stone making a woman's head flicker into view, flopping to the side. Harry quickly looked back the direction he'd come, seeing Dumbledore on his feet again, wand pointed at the now stone-encased attacker. Well, he may not fight like Ron, but Dumbledore sure did pack a mean punch. He even had red hair, although Ron had never grown his that long. Or had much of a beard.

"Thanks, Professor. I got a bit caught up in the fight there."

"Please, call me Albus. Being called Professor by an adult makes me feel quite old," Dumbledore responded mildly, "And you're quite welcome. Consider this a returned favor for saving me earlier."

"Oh, Of course...Albus," Harry said, off balance. The idea of calling Dumbledore anything but professor just felt off. He supposed that was the result of never knowing Dumbledore as anything other than a teacher, when he himself had been a student.

Harry remembered the two assailants he'd knocked down as he charged, and conjured a small rainfall to find them. Seeing the dry spots on the floor, he sent two quick stunners their way and tied them up for good measure, and woman he'd charged down as well. He dismissed the rain with a wave of his wand and then asked, "Do you think that was all of them?"

"I certainly hope so. These are quite skilled opponents, and they appear to be experts at ambushing tactics. At any rate—

An elderly witch ran up to them, interrupting Dumbledore, "Albus! What's going on, and who are these people? And who's he?" she puffed, pointing at Harry.

"These are the intruders I told the castle about. We aren't sure how many there are around, as they appear to have stunned the Headmaster somehow. And this is Perry Hauter, a man who might just be interested in taking over your job," Dumbledore replied, before walking over to the Headmaster and waving his wand, muttering something to himself.

"After my job, eh? Well you seem to have kept up with Albus in a fight here, so I'd imagine you'll be a great fit!" the old witch said, before turning to Dumbledore, "Is he alright?"

"He appears to be merely unconscious, although a simple enervate isn't doing anything. We should get him to the hospital wing as soon as possible, though without him, we have no way of knowing how many intruders there were."

Harry spoke up, "We should get him to the hospital wing anyway. I'll carry him, you two keep an eye out for any more of these guys."

"Speaking of, do you think you could manage carrying them, too? We shouldn't just leave them when there could be more about to revive them," the old witch pointed out.

"Good idea," said Harry, "I'll levitate them all then, if you could release the one you encased, Dumbledore?"

"Please, get used to calling me Albus. After seeing you fight, I have no doubt we'll be colleagues before long," Dumbledore—no, Albus requested as he released the woman from the stone and bound her with rope.

"He's that good?" the witch questioned, seeming to catch on to the implication, "I expected to be teaching for at least a few more years, finding a good, available defense professor during these times can be quite difficult," the old witch, who Harry supposed was the current defense professor, interjected.

"He's very good. He's been on the warfront for quite some time now, but needs shelter," Albus replied. Harry levitated all of the assailants and the Headmaster, and they began to walk to the hospital wing. "Now we should keep quiet, who knows whether sound will give away our position," Albus continued, leading the way. The other professor fell in behind Harry, keeping one eye firmly behind them.

As they walked, Harry had time to think. He didn't know exactly what year it was, although he could ask for the date, and hope that someone answered with the year. Maybe getting a look at the Daily Prophet would be a better idea; he'd be less likely to draw suspicion that way. But the problem of his presence in his own distant past remained. Harry wasn't sure how to avoid changing things, or whether he even could change events without something horrible happening. He hoped that interrogating the people they'd captured would clear things up a bit, but he was afraid of staying too close to Hogwarts. He knew too many things about its history for sticking around to be a good idea, especially since he'd prefer to get back to the future he left, and doing so would be quite difficult if he was obliterated by a paradox, or somehow managed to change the flow of time and wipe out the future he knew. Harry desperately hoped it wouldn't come to that. But he also didn't see a good way to get out of Hogwarts now that they thought he needed shelter there, and knew he'd make a good defense professor. He also imagined that keeping the men who'd attacked them at Hogwarts would be best until he knew more. For all he knew, sending men who could in all likelihood travel in time would result in their swift and mysterious disappearance. At Hogwarts, however, he could exert influence as a professor, should he be hired, to ensure their secure detainment, unlike the ministry of the past that he didn't work for.

Resolving that staying at Hogwarts looked like the best idea, Harry was surprised to see that they were just outside the hospital wing. He supposed he'd been quite preoccupied, and fortunate to have two professors keeping a lookout, although they hadn't been attacked. Dumbledore—or Albus, Harry supposed, opened the doors and walked inside, followed by Harry and the other face.

"Albus!" Harry heard a surprisingly familiar voice exclaim, "I heard you talking about some kind of intruders, did you take care of—" At this point, Harry had levitated the six unconscious men through the doors, answering the unfinished question. "I see. I might have gone to help if I hadn't been tending to George here," the nurse indicated a man who looked both nothing like the George that Harry knew and also as though he'd been attacked by a large beast, maybe a thestral by the bite marks out of his arms and one of his legs, "but why did you bring them here?"

"We brought them here because there may be more who would wake them, and we needed to bring the headmaster here for treatment. He was hit by some kind of stunning spell that doesn't work with the usual counter curse," Albus replied.

"Oh dear…let me finish treating George, it'll only take a few minutes. Set the headmaster on a bed and I suppose for now you can put those men on beds as well, we have room," the nurse said, turning back to the man she'd been tending when they walked in. Harry lowered the headmaster and the others onto six beds and heaved a sigh of relief. It may not be as strenuous as physically lifting something, but lifting it magically still took something out of you, more so the bigger it got.

"Well, if you have everything taken care of here, I think I'll head back to my quarters," the defense professor said, "I may even need to start packing, if we really have found a replacement!" She then left, with a bit more spring in her step than Harry would have expected.

Curious, and having spare time, Harry walked up to the headmaster and cast the basic scanning spells he'd learned in training. He discovered that nothing notable was wrong with the headmaster, aside from his unconsciousness. Puzzled, Harry attempted to enervate him, to no avail. Wracking his brain, Harry remembered Hermione had taught him a complicated curse detection spell after Ron had nearly died to a particularly nasty and difficult to detect curse just weeks ago. How did it go? Concentrate on something you hate, he remembered that because it was easy to conjure up an image of Voldemort's face even years after his death. But the incantation was complicated too, and the wand movement was tricky, though he'd trained that into muscle memory like all the spells he knew. If he could recall the incantation, the movement would come to him. It was…kessif something. Kessif han…esthri? Yes, that was right.

Enunciating clearly and twisting his wand in the peculiar way the spell required, Harry incanted, "Kessif han esthri," and was relieved to finally detect something. It appeared that the spell on the headmaster was out of sync with nearly all magic, hence its unresponsiveness to normal spells, detection, and shields. The curse on Ron had been quite similar, although it had caused its victim to slowly bleed out of small wounds all over their body and use their own magic to vanish the blood, making it nearly unnoticeable until the victim was on unconscious, death's door. Harry had been lucky to get Ron to St. Mungo's and to find a Healer who knew how to detect and halt such effects within seconds of apparating, otherwise Ron may have died in the hospital because treatment couldn't be rendered fast enough. Hermione had drilled the counter spell into his head along with the detection spell, so he tried that as well.

"Ijhellatu jhame!" He incanted, and was relieved to see the headmaster's eyes open.

"How on Earth…? I scanned the headmaster myself! There was nothing medically or magically wrong with him!" Albus exclaimed

Dippet spoke up, "What's that? Where are we and what happened to the men attacking us?"

"The men who attacked you are on the beds to your right, sir," said Harry, "and we are now in the hospital wing. You were unconscious and common means of waking you were ineffective."

"And yet Perry here had little trouble reviving you! Frankly I find it a little suspicious how easily he removed that spell, and avoided the intruders' attacks. It's almost like he was in league with them, and now he's trying to build our trust!" Albus, it seemed, wasn't terribly trusting.

* * *

 **A/N: Yep. That looks like a truly horrible place to end it. I'll be hated for days for this at least. Oh well, I did promise a chapter a week, and it is currently 11:50PM Pacific Standard Time on Saturday the 23** **rd** **. Meaning it is still technically the week after the last week in which I released a chapter, so I've kept good to my word. Because that's all I promised.**

 **I am sorry this chapter took so long though. It's been a difficult week, and this chapter didn't cooperate with me at all, either. Harry wanted to preserve the time stream and I want him at Hogwarts…for undisclosed reasons. In the end, the real solution will come in the next chapter, but at any rate, I gotta stop writing and post this fast before the week ends!**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: Lawyers, I meant no offense. I considered becoming a lawyer once. You people just make a good scapegoat for the silliness that is the legal landscape. ;P**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Disclaimers are still stupid. Of course, that doesn't change my non-ownership of Harry Potter…**

* * *

"It's almost like he was in league with them, and now he's trying to build our trust!"

Harry was more than just a little shocked at Dumbledore's accusation. He'd helped in the fight, after all, and given no indication that he was untrustworthy! He supposed that Dumbledore's worry about what secrets Harry might have known could have set the man on edge, but right now he needed to worry about damage control. To his surprise, however, he wasn't the first to speak in his own defense.

"Albus, calm down. Let's not jump to hasty conclusions about a man who has just helped us a great deal. Unless I miss my guess, he was quite instrumental in the fight which knocked me out?" the headmaster spoke in a placating tone.

Albus turned to Harry, mistrust clear in his expression.

"I fought in the war, remember? I know how these guys fight." Harry wasn't sure himself exactly how he'd known an ambush was coming, but he did know that it wasn't too unusual for him to dodge attacks he shouldn't have been able to anticipate. Years of auror work had taught him that. "I've also developed an…instinct almost, for when I'm in danger. I don't know how, I just…know when an attack is coming at me. It's gotten to the point where sneaking up on me is nearly impossible." Harry hoped that telling them that would help. Especially since that, unlike the rest of his story, could be proven.

"And how did you know magic that would work on the headmaster? Do you have some sort of medical training, or are you simply familiar with the magic that was used?" Albus sounded more than just a little bit suspicious.

"I have some medical experience. I picked it up as I went, really, there weren't always healers on the field. This particular spell I used is one I learned after a friend of mine was nearly killed by an unusual strain of magic. I suspect it was the same people, or people related to the attackers today who attacked him, especially since the same counter spell worked on this magic." That was a surprisingly plausible theory, actually. He'd been with Ron when he was attacked, and the enemy had fought in a similar manner to the men lying on the hospital beds, although there had only been one assailant, and they'd disappeared as soon as Harry hit them. He still didn't know how that had been done, since every type of magical transportation he knew of had been warded against in the area. That was actually what he and Ron had been investigating, since the wards had no reason to be where they were, in the middle of a forest. But if someone could travel in time, and suddenly appear in the middle of Hogwarts like these people had, they could probably defeat all the wards that had been up in the area. Was that incident related to this one somehow?

"See Albus, there is an explanation here. Now kindly lay off of the man who has proven nothing but helpful so far," Dippet said. Harry couldn't deny his actions looked suspicious, given what Dumbledore had said, but he was grateful that someone believed him. He just wished that Dumbledore would believe him. Harry really wanted the one familiar face in the past to be a friendly one, not a distrusting one.

"Wait, are you wasting my time here? The headmaster appears to be in perfectly good health to me!" the nurse had finished with her other patient, and come over to treat the headmaster. As Harry turned to look at her, he was quite shocked to see another familiar face. He hadn't noticed earlier, due to her extreme youth and his own distraction, but this was a young Madam Pomfrey! Fresh out of school, if her appearance was anything to judge by, but unmistakably the same witch who'd treated all of his school injuries. Harry was so shocked he forgot to speak, though Albus picked up the slack.

"Perry here apparently knew a few tricks that I didn't. He also seems uncomfortably familiar with the enemy, although he has been fighting them for some time, to hear him tell it."

"You know your medical spells then? Maybe we should touch bases then, I'm still fairly new at this, and you might even know something I don't!" Madame Pomfrey apparently hadn't noticed Dumbledore's tone, and thought that Harry, or anyone who knew their healing, was okay. Well, that was one familiar and friendly face, he supposed, until she realized how trouble-prone he always was. Maybe as a professor he had more hope of staying clear of the hospital wing? No, he had already been attacked after less than a day back at Hogwarts. He was doomed.

"I doubt I know more than a trained mediwitch," Harry said gently, "my knowledge is more limited to keeping people alive long enough to be treated by people like you."

"Oh…I'm not a full mediwitch, I'm just a nurse," Madam Pomfrey appeared a bit bashful at being called a mediwitch, "and at any rate, what did you use to revive the headmaster? I wouldn't have had too many ideas where to start, to be honest."

Harry noted the change of subject, and also knew that a mediwitch was little more than a nurse with a whole hospital at her disposal in the wizarding world. Both were technically healers, and the only real difference was the equipment at their disposal. But he wasn't going to push the issue, if she was as fresh out of training as he imagined, he could see her being quite nervous. He'd been the same in his early years as an auror in training, and even as an auror, at first.

"Have you heard of Egyptian Hylesion?" he asked. That was what Hermione had called it anyway.

"Egyptian what? No, wait! Isn't that some sort of absolutist magic? Not generally useful for anything other that extremely faint curse residue?" Apparently Madame Pomfrey had heard of it.

"It's quite handy for hard-to-detect magic. Most of the time other things will do a better job, but in cases like this one, it's the only thing that works. These guys," Harry gestured to the witches and wizards lying on the bed, "use magic that doesn't interact with most forms of magic. That's why it was going through shields like the one the headmaster tried to defend himself with. But the absolutist nature of this Egyptian stuff will interact with it. Once I cast the detection spell and figured out what was going on, I just cast a purging spell, and the headmaster woke right up."

Madam Pomfrey looked stunned. "I never paid any attention to Hylesion after I was tested on it, because they said it wouldn't be very useful. I guess that was my mistake…you have to teach me everything you know!" she looked both eager about learning it, and a bit chastised at the idea that she'd been overlooking a branch of magic she shouldn't have.

"Well…I actually only know the two spells. They're difficult enough, and I figured I could leave the rest to…the healers," Harry very nearly said 'to Hermione,' but that might not be the best of ideas. It wasn't the most common of names, and Harry didn't want Dumbledore finding out about people long before their births.

"Still, I need to know about this, it's clearly enough of an issue to be worth more than just a passing grade on a test. I may have to study on my own for details, but until I find a good book on the subject, consider yourself my official tutor. If these people can get into Hogwarts, I need to be ready to treat any victims," Madam Pomfrey certainly wasn't the old matron he remembered, she was a young, eager witch, who reminded him more than just a little bit of Hermione.

Harry turned to the headmaster and said, "Well, it would appear my skills are in high demand around here. I may not have a choice but to stay." Albus still looked suspicious, even after Harry's detailed explanation of his knowledge. Oh well, it would probably take some time for Albus to trust him, considering his history with Grindelwald. Albus was no fool, and apparently he was very slow to trust people.

"Well, the term doesn't start for another month, so we have plenty of time to settle those matters. In the meantime, I need to talk to you about the holes in our defenses. These intruders appear quite dealt with for now, but the question of how they got in remains unanswered," Dippet said, raising an eyebrow at Harry, likely suggesting he go into a bit more detail about how he'd gotten in.

"Well, first I have to ask, did you detect only five intruders? We couldn't tell without you whether we'd dealt with all of them," Harry replied, remembering why they'd gone to the hospital wing in the first place.

"I'd have to visit the ward stones to be sure, but I'm fairly confident no unaccounted intruders wandering about. Five intruders was about what it felt like the wards were alerting me to, although their detection prevention was impressive. Perhaps we should head in the direction of the ward stones as we discuss the holes in the defenses they provide?" Dippet was determined to get to the bottom of the intrusions, if nothing else. Harry supposed that made quite a bit of sense, in the warlike atmosphere he'd landed in.

"Well, as long as you bring this one back here, I suppose I should let you go. Mr. 'it's just a scratch' Welton over here does still need some looking after," Madame Pomfrey gestured at the man she'd been treating. He moaned in what was probably supposed to be an indignant manner. Harry could sympathize all too well with the man, although it appeared that the old, near-constantly irritated nurse he was familiar with hadn't fully reared her head yet. She was young still, with plenty of time to weary of tending to the wounds of people who never seemed to _avoid_ danger.

"I'll be back then," Harry said, turning to her, and reflecting that he wasn't actually supposed to know her name yet, "By the way, my name is Perry, Perry Hauter. And you are?" He extended his hand to shake.

"I'm Poppy Pomfrey, but you should just call me Poppy, especially if you're going to be teaching me," she shook his extended hand.

"I'll remember that then, Poppy," he said, only slightly disoriented that he wouldn't be calling her Madame Pomfrey. He supposed that calling her that as an adult would sound a bit weird. "Now, shall we be off?" he directed his question at Dumbledore and the headmaster, the latter having gotten off the bed.

"Yes, let us go to the ward stones. You have some explaining to do, and I some maintenance, unless I miss my guess," the headmaster said, leading the way to the door. Albus followed them, frowning. Harry had little doubt that they'd be discussing the safety of bringing a stranger to see the ward stones long before they got around to discussing in detail his methods for bypassing the wards' detection.

Oh well.

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 **A/N: Shorter chapter, busier week. My weeks are getting hectic and I'm beginning to have to sacrifice sleep just to get these chapters out on time. Just a warning, I may not do that in the future, although I will do my best to keep my (failing) weekly upload schedule. At any rate, I'm now in the same position I was in last Saturday night, so I'm going to stop typing and upload.**

 **ir7, you have nothing to worry about. I have a hard enough time reading good slash fics, and I generally stay away from the genre, as I'm not a fan. Most of you probably noticed that cannon pairings were intact, and they will stay that way throughout the whole fic. I'm personally a sucker for some good cannon pairings, in almost any universe. Harry will (he hopes) befriend Albus Dumbledore, but they'll only be friends, for many reasons besides just my lack of interest in such a pairing.**

 **At any rate, I'm now in the same position I was in last Saturday night, so I'm going to stop typing and upload.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** **Disclaimers are still redundant. I mean it, this time I'm not even going to disclaim anything. (That was a claim. Disclaiming is completely different. I promise.)**

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Surge. That was a good way to describe it. It had never really happened frequently enough that he gave it this much thought before, but, now that it had happened three times in one day, Harry had identified a way to describe that feeling using the English language. How nice.

"GET DOWN!" Harry dove into the Headmaster. The attack had been aimed at him, he was fairly sure, but the attackers seemed to attack anything obviously not unconscious, and Albus was behind them. He'd have to make do on his own this time.

Harry arranged himself and Dippet so that neither would be seriously injured by the fall, then reached out to the ground, activated the some of most useful wandless magic he knew of, and _bounced_ back up, twisting as he sprung to face…Albus Dumbledore, who looked more than just a little bit shocked, with his wand pointed straight at Harry. It was too late to stop the spell heading the man's way, a finite incantatem that Harry had hoped would be fast and sudden enough (it was a very high-velocity spell) to catch whatever hiding magic their attacker was using. As Dumbledore wasn't under any magical influences or effects, nothing happened. Harry did manage not to stun the man as a part of his 'fight' reflex, but only just.

"YOU! What are you thinking, I nearly stunned you, I thought we were under attack again!" Harry was shocked, and more than a small bit irritated at Dumbledore's continued attitude, something that had no doubt escalated into this…mess.

The man in question was still pointing his wand at Harry, though he looked too startled to cast anything, "…I…I thought you were a spy. There was only one other rational explanation, and the idea that you could be telling the truth was, quite frankly, and insane one."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Harry muttered, reflecting on just how insane his day had been so far. Louder, he said, "And now you've realized that magic makes insanity relative?"

"I suppose that is one way of putting it," Dumbledore replied, relaxing enough to lower his wand, though not enough to put it away, "Your explanation does leave a few things to the imagination, however, that I would very much like to know more about."

It was a fair point, but, "You can't." Harry could tell Dumbledore hardly anything close to the truth, given the circumstances, "And while I suspect I know your specific interest, I'll not readily tell you more. What I know, and what I've done, is best left in the past." Or the future. That would surely get confusing.

"And why is it best left in the past?" Harry was caught off guard. Albus was good at thinking on his feet if nothing else.

"Because…it really doesn't matter anymore," Harry said, thinking carefully, "What matters right now is what _is_ happening, and what _will_ happen."

"Can I stand up now, or will that get me hexed?" Dippet, forgotten on the floor, sounded more than just a little bit irritated.

Albus immediately seemed to forget the conversation, in favor of apologizing profusely to his headmaster, "I'm sorry, sir, I thought our security was about to be breached in an unforgivable manner, and acted out of turn." Apparently the man was quite capable of humility; though Harry wondered how much Albus getting his sister killed due to his own mistakes had to do with that.

Dippet thrust himself to his feet vigorously, "Too right you acted out of turn; you attacked a trusted ally, and without even consulting me! We're quite fortunate this man seems to need aid from us as well, he likely would have left long ago due to your attitude alone if he didn't. Mind your manners, and keep in mind that even as an enemy, Mr. Hauter here has proven quite capable of sneaking around this castle undetected, and probably can't be stopped from learning all our secrets, and should he so desire, exacting whatever revenge he seeks on us as we sleep!" Well, he wasn't wrong, but Dippet wasn't really aware of all of the facts of the situation, either.

Harry felt it was high time to interject, before assumptions that could impair relations were made. "Actually, from what I could tell as a student, the sleeping areas are under a different set of precautions than the rest of the school, to prevent exactly such a scenario from becoming reality. And to help defend against inter-house pranking gone wrong, if experience is anything indicator…" Harry trailed off, remembering tales of Hermione's 7th year at Hogwarts, and the infamous luggage explosion a failed prank had caused, "but at any rate, I can't go around slitting throats in the night without actual inside help, or authorization. So you're safe there. And though I haven't seen the stones themselves, you really aren't hiding much at this point, because I had to know the basics of their alignment to trick the wards."

There was a short pause.

"You see Albus? Let's just get on with this." Dippet seemed to be pleading at this point. Harry wondered just what the dynamics of the relationship between the two men was, with Dippet having the authority, but Dumbledore being powerful, benevolent enough to step down, and also generally right. Complex was a safe bet.

Albus looked a bit weary. Harry briefly wondered if this is how discussions about Tom Riddle had gone, and whether those discussions had happened yet. Those conversations were about an actual villain in the making, however unlike this one. At any rate, the man didn't say any more on the subject, simply waving his hand in a resigned way. The three of them continued their trek to the ward stones.

"So…tell me more about this 'trick' that gets you past the wards, if you could," Dippet began after a bit, sounding a bit awkward due to the heated discussion they'd just had.

"Well, I didn't invent the method, so my explanation may actually be unsatisfactory. The basic idea is that a conflux system that taps into so many ley lines, like the ten the Hogwarts wards use, has an unavoidable flaw. No matter how complicated and well designed the system gets, there will always be seven vectors of the conflux of energy that can be forcibly aligned, using some rather difficult mental exercises, and once you align them, you can rewrite minor details of the wards, such as how old a person is. As long as you don't try to directly change the ward's categorization of a person, but instead take a roundabout approach, no one will be the wiser unless they check both the wards and the person being incorrectly read. And while I can go over how to accomplish it in more detail, but I don't know the actual theory beyond that, that was my friend's job."

Dippet looked a bit stunned, while Albus looked more thoughtful, probably pondering the deeper theory which only braniacs like him and Hermione truly understood. Harry took this as a good sign. Maybe being forthcoming would help overcome the trust barrier between Harry and his one-time mentor.

"That sounds…truly ingenius. And quite possible, though I can't imagine how this friend of yours thought the idea up. Or what motivation they would have had, since cross-checking someone the wards have accepted is a bit redundant." Well, Albus was nothing if not thorough. And accusatory. The Marauder's Map was the reason Hermione had set out to fool the wards, of course, but that wasn't supposed to exist just yet, and was also unique and incredibly complex to boot.

"To make a long and rather complicated story short, some other geniuses set up a simple way to read the wards' outputs in real time, and use it as…a notice system of sorts to avoid trouble. Because of the complicated and powerful ward system it was designed to piggyback on, this device was basically impossible to fool, even using polyjuice, an invisibility cloak, or any other means we could come up with. So my genius of a friend had a brilliant, if bold idea: fool the wards instead. Surprisingly enough, her muggleborn status gave her a unique perspective that made that a simpler task than fooling the…detection system that had been set up." Harry wasn't really sure how to describe the map without getting specific, but he also didn't want anyone to make the connection between this story and any times in the future he may have to use the map. His auror job had prepared him for subterfuge, but this was getting difficult!

"And the details that have been left out will stay that way, I presume? If we're really on the same side of the war, I can't help but wonder why you can't tell us about the places whose wards you've had to break in the past." Albus was definitely accusatory. And to make it worse, he had a point. Great.

"I didn't break the wards. I fooled them. Those wards stand strong to this day, and are actually stronger because of a few things my friend and I did. They weren't enemy wards. They protect one of the most important places in the world, at least to me. Probably to a significant portion of the world, but I can't speak for others. As such, I'll leave the details out." Well, the stripped down truth would still work, if barely. After all, aside from Hogwarts and a very few other places on the globe, wards simply _couldn't_ have such complex conflux systems, because there were only so many ley line convergences with enough crossed lines. There were only five such locations on the whole planet, to Harry's knowledge, and two were all but uninhabitable, even with magic and the power of the local ley lines. And yet, if he claimed to have studied Hogwarts' wards in detail, he would be asked when exactly he had the means to do so, and be quite unable to prove his one-time stint at the school as a student, due to major temporal issues.

"The Bermuda Triangle? As far as I know the magic itself is hostile enough there to make settlement and use of ambient ley line power impossible. Nurmengard is enemy territory without a doubt. So did you perhaps pay a visit to Australia in your travels, and their prestigious magical school, which enjoys a similar system? The only other place wards of this nature could exist is the very peak of Mount Everest, and no one, magical or otherwise, has ever been there. That and this very building, but no one has analyzed these wards aside from a headmaster for seven centuries."

"Now Albus—

"He has a point, Headmaster." Harry really didn't know what he was doing here. He just knew that all this omission was getting to him, and could easily land him in trouble. "Suffice to say that your lack of knowledge on the subject of the ley lines and their intersection is kind of the point." On the bright side, more misdirection would DEFINITELY help. Harry sighed heavily. "Look, I have massive secrets that actually scare me when I consider their possible impact. You're just going to have to leave it at that, because any more would be a hint I can't let a mind like yours get a hold of, for fear you'll figure everything out and unravel existence as we know it!" Harry stopped there, not really sure what else he could say.

"Ascendunt et descendunt." Harry and Albus both started a bit at Dippet's voice. "On a note rather unrelated to your discussion, we've arrived." A section of wall, which the headmaster had been facing was now absent, revealing a large, open chamber filled with more quartz than Harry thought he'd ever see in one place. The whole room was lined with the crystalline structure, walls and ceiling looking oddly rough, natural. Appearing to simply grow out of the floor were ten 'pillars' that were spaced at odd intervals, approximately two feet thick, and gradually curved upward to form a dome, no doubt mirroring the dome the wards themselves formed around the school. The whole structure had a diameter and height of roughly 50 feet. Even having seen it once before, before Hermione had unceremoniously shoved him out so that she could focus, Harry was floored with amazement. The structure was simple, yet massive, and would never fail to inspire awe.

Realizing he was staring, and his jaw had slacked more than just a tad, Harry cleared his throat, attempted to step forward without taking his eyes off of the incredible structure, and promptly fell flat on his face. Oh yeah. The floor was uneven. Unless he remembered wrong, the same thing had happened to him before, to Hermione and Ron's undying amusement. Reflexes kicking in, Harry's arms shot out, caught him, and absorbed some of the momentum of the fall in a push-up like motion. Still looking slightly up and forward, Harry was afforded an up close and personal look at the treacherous floor which had tripped him so rudely. He very nearly made a face at it, choosing instead to get his legs back under him and stand up.

"Wow," he stated, breathless for more than one reason now.

"Indeed, it takes the breath away, does it not?" Dippet said kindly.

"And the sense of balance, it seems," Albus said less kindly. Harry forgot himself just long enough to make the face he restrained himself from making earlier at the floor, but directed it at the teasing man. Albus seemed a bit surprised at the sudden and apparently unexpected tongue pointed his direction, before laughing, even more unexpectedly. Harry was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the situation and found himself joining. He nearly fell over again he laughed so hard. It was almost like he didn't have to worry, he could just let go, laugh like a maniac, and enjoy himself.

Dippet looked on with a smile. "Well, it seems I was correct in my assumption that this room calms the soul. You two have been at each other's throats since the hospital wing, and here you are, behaving like two friendly youths! I can't say I'm disappointed by this, even if it isn't what we came here to accomplish."

This room really did seem more peaceful. Freeing. He hadn't laughed like that since Ron got his leg stuck in a pranked toilet. They had been investigating what turned out to be a prank in a restroom, but had given off waves of magic dangerous enough to merit auror investigation. In the end, Ron had gotten bored of gently probing the magic to see what it could do, cast a shield charm around himself, and charged in. At his yelp of surprise, Harry had rushed into find a lone toilet in the middle of the restroom, he partner's foot lodged firmly down the drain. Ron himself was sprawled on the floor with such a look of indignity that Harry really couldn't help himself. He laughed so hard and long that Ron barely talked to him for a week. On top of that, the magic used was particularly stubborn, and Ron was stuck with his foot in a toilet for nearly five hours, until Hermione showed up with some book on the most obscure magic imaginable. Harry didn't mention it much, preferring a partner who talked to him, but he still had trouble controlling his laughter when the jokes flew at the office.

Gathering himself back into a sense of composure, Harry remembered what they were there for. Turning to Albus and the headmaster, he grinned and asked, "So, who's up for a lesson in breaking really damned powerful wards without help?"

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 **A/N: Yay! I found time to write again! I hope this isn't a regular occurrence, but I also can't make promises. Until summer begins (or winter if you're weird I MEAN unless you live in the southern hemisphere. Ahem.) I can't make guarantees about free time, due to school, extracurriculars, and work. Hope you enjoyed, and all that fun jazz.**

 **If you noticed grammar errors you can go to hell I MEAN you can go to the review section and point it out, or if you really like me and are a nice person you could apply to beta my fic. You could also just be a typical reader and tell me nothing about what I do right or wrong in my story, I love that. *sarcasmIsrealbutIdontactuallymeanthecountry***

 **And I really am sorry this is a week +~1/2 hour late, really.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I claim that writing chapters when I promised I'd write them is difficult. Also it doesn't keep you on your toes nearly as much…I'm sorry. I'll let you get on with reading the chapter now.**

 **Actually, I'm a liar, I made a few edits to the end of chapter 5 which you should check out if you read it last before May 28th. Unless you feel like charging into this chapter headfirst and figuring the rest out later. It really depends on you, whether that's a good idea or not.**

 **Am I being cryptic enough yet?**

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"So, who's up for a lesson in breaking really damned powerful wards without help?" Harry asked with a grin.

"I thought this was a lesson in circumventing the wards, not breaking them," Dippet said.

"Oh, it is, though you should also be aware that with access to the actual ward scheme, I can rearrange things in here until they suit my own purposes, whatever those may be. It'd be difficult, and very finicky, but with actual stones to tie my little modifications to, I can pile them up until the wards no longer function, at which point I can quite literally do anything I want with the power of 10 intersecting ley lines. Or that's the—

"Wait WHAT!"

Of course Albus would be alarmed at something like that.

"It's a theory Professor; no one's ever tried it. If I had to hazard a guess, most people would try something else, anything else, before bringing down the wards, because such a complex task could so easily be interrupted, resulting in who knows what. The power of 10 partially repurposed ley lines could do nearly anything. At any rate, I'll be teaching you my little method, and the applications of it that I know. First, sit in the center of the dome."

Albus looked slightly mollified by that, though he was probably rightly terrified at the thought of someone repurposing the power behind the unassailable Hogwarts wards to their own whims. As Harry watched Dippet and Albus walk into the dome that formed the core of the school, the thought suddenly struck him just how much he really was capable of doing, how much anyone who had studied the wards and could access the stones was capable of. It was no wonder Hermione had panicked when she figured this out, that she'd tried every way imaginable to protect the ward conflux from tampering. She'd even asked for his help, despite his rather basic understanding of wards, saying he had a different perspective. But even he couldn't think of a way to rearrange the ward scheme to function without all the confluxes of energy powering them. They _had_ to be there, as much as a person had to be behind a wand for any magic to flow through it.

Suddenly realizing that he'd been spacing out, Harry shook his head and walked into the center of the arching pillars with Albus and Dippet, motioning for them to sit as he said, "Now this took me a week to fully understand, and nearly two months to master to the point that I could make any progress while not sitting in the center of the whole ward scheme, so don't expect to be able to do much today. I'll just be showing you where to start, really, and then we should get back to check on those intruders.

"Now to start, you want to close your eyes and just feel the thrum of the power as it flows through the room. The power up here, as you probably know, has been drawn up from the ley lines intersecting well below the ground, and has a bit of tension to it. When you can feel not just the massive power that flows through this room, but the tension keeping it there, we'll be ready to progress to the next step."

Hesitantly, Dippet asked, "And how should we search for this…tension?"

"Oh that's up to you entirely. I felt around the flow of power until I knew it well enough to start noticing the small things, but some start by simply looking for what's out of place. Like I said, this is going to take quite some time, it's a fairly imprecise art," Harry knew he wasn't being very helpful, but as far as he knew, there wasn't much more to say. One had to find the complexities of the power structure on one's own, or risk not truly understanding them.

As Albus and Dippet focused, Harry felt his own way through the twisting stack of webs that were the confluxes, until he found what he was looking for; identification wards. He then carefully began shifting the power redirected through them until it was possible to slip a few modifications into the gaps. He slowly and carefully nudged the identification system in a way that disallowed it from changing its identification of him in any way, so that he could stay for as long as he needed to without worrying about aging past the acceptable boundaries. He then worked his way along the web until he found the other place he wanted to modify; access privileges. He'd need to be registered as a professor if he was going to actually stick around and become one, so he figured he'd do the legwork, instead of making Dippet modify the wards' actual recognition of him. This would be more difficult, he could already feel the light headache beginning to creep in, but… _there._ Harry found each area of access which Hogwarts might deny to a normal student and, dancing around the system, convinced the wards that letting a man with a false-positive reading on his age (so long as that reading was exactly what his was) into every restricted area in addition to his normal student allowances was perfectly acceptable. The wards added him to the...whitelist, had Hermione said? At any rate, these lists were easier to access than the usual ward-breaker target of the active detection measures that referred to the lists. The only trick was removing enough ley line power from the list not to fry one's brain. After he was finished, he slowly withdrew from the system, allowing the energy to flow through the wards normally again, empowering his modifications as though they were a normal part of the ward scheme, because they were now. Even the exterior modification he'd made would be recognized whenever he was inside the wards, and that was as much as he needed.

Returning to his attention to his own mind and body, he winced slightly at the headache which had mounted up, rubbing his temples lightly as it faded. That was another good reason not to try serious modifications to the wards; they'd hurt like hell itself. You didn't just have to modify the wards, you had to maintain your manipulations of the energy systems as you worked, which was a serious mental strain. Just learning how to touch them without damaging your consciousness was hard enough. Moving them was like keeping track of several massive equations at once, though he preferred to think of it like keeping track of moving snitches on a quidditch pitch. Hermione had said it'd be different for everyone, making the process manageable.

Finally opening his eyes, Harry looked at Albus and Dippet as they tried to focus on the wards, and the power flowing through the room. Dippet looked as though he was slowly growing more and more confused, but Albus…Albus seemed to be doing just fine. He was sitting in a relaxed pose, with just enough posture to avoid hurting his back. He could have just been listening to the wizarding wireless, just like…well, just like Albus Severus Potter used to. Albus had always been an inquisitive boy, taking after his grandmother, from what Harry had known of her. The wizarding wireless was one way to learn, one that didn't require someone else, just solitude. It didn't even really matter what was on, Albus was usually far off in his own world, taking small inspirations from what he heard and using them to go places far beyond normal comprehension. Sometimes Harry would interrupt him, only to get a stream of rapid fire ideas, and as Albus grew older, even a few modeled out gadgets and spells that could baffle even Hermione at times. The boy sure did take after his namesake, in more ways that just one. And now Harry had to deal with the namesake of his son, the man who would one day lead a nation through a war, if from the backlines. How was he supposed to deal with this?

As if in response to Harry's internal question, Albus Dumbledore stirred, drawing Harry's attention back to the present. Albus appeared to have noticed something suddenly, head shooting up from a slight droop of concentration. Then he moved his head searchingly, eyes still closed, before sighing and opening his eyes.

"I think I felt something unusual, for a split second there," the red haired man said.

That was fast, Harry though as he asked, "What did it feel like?" Dippet had opened his eyes as well, distracted by the sudden conversation.

"I could feel the rivers of power gushing through the room like always, but then I…I felt around what seemed to be underneath those rivers. It was like I'd suddenly found the most irritating thing in the whole world, so irritating that my mind fled from the sensation."

"Well, you did find what you were looking for, that sounds quite right," Harry said, "the abyss keeping the tapped power above ground is always shocking to someone who's been swimming around in that power. It may even be the power itself itching to flow normally rubbing that disposition off on you. You should try to find it again, see if you can focus on it this time. And Headmaster, you shouldn't worry too much about your own progress, Albus here seems uncommonly talented at this. Continue trying to detect the tension, that abyss, and you'll find it. You don't even need to find it the same way Albus did, most people find it in a different way. Keeping that in mind, let's keep going here a bit longer."

Both men closed their eyes again, focusing intently. Remembering his own experience doing much the same he said, "And relax a bit; this is a feeling, a sense. You won't feel as much if you tense up."

As they continued to focus, Harry let his thoughts wander some more. He really needed to find something to do if he was going to continue these 'lessons,' otherwise he'd die of boredom. Maybe he could work out his plans for figuring out just how on Earth he'd gotten sent so far into the past? Beyond trying to question the captives that were in the hospital wing, he didn't really have any ideas. The library might have some theoretical books on the subject, though they would probably just dismiss the idea as impossible, from what he'd seen in the wizarding world. Maybe it'd be worth a try.

As time passed, Harry wondered how long he should let the two men meditate. Albus seemed to be having success, occasionally starting as though he'd found something, but he probably wasn't getting too much further than he already had. They also had the intruders to attend to. After about a half hour of sitting there, Harry came to a decision and rose, saying, "Well, we can get back to trying this later. Did either of you have any success?"

"Not more than I told you about," Albus said.

"I can't figure out how to make sense of anything with all the energy swirling through here," Dippet said, "It makes sensing minutia quite difficult."

"Well, keep in mind that Albus here is doing quite amazingly well just finding something else, it took me close to five days of concentration to sense more than just a massive power flooding my senses. Not everyone's as good as he is." Dippet seemed to accept this, looking thoughtful.

"In the meantime, I would be perfectly willing to teach you two more later, but at present I believe there is a more pressing matter to attend to. The intruders who also penetrated the finest wards in the country, and possibly the wards. I can assure you that whatever method they used was far less subtle than my own, and may have even been some experimental method which allowed them to bypass the wards entirely." In addition to the laws of magic as they were currently understood, but that could wait until Harry was talking to someone he knew he could talk to without worrying about horrible paradoxical results.

As they headed back to the hospital wing, Albus asked whether Harry had any ideas about other ways to penetrate the Hogwarts wards. This made Harry think, because the trick with the Hogwarts wards was usually to get in undetected, not the act of getting in. After saying as much, Harry began to reflect on the matter. The wards let nearly anyone in, because school wards needed to let so many people in. On a normal day, the worst that would happen to anyone short of a few forbidden individuals was a thorough questioning about just why they needed to get into Hogwarts. The wards could be reinforced quite easily by the current headmaster's command, of course, in times of emergency. Days like those earned the school its reputation, and harkened back to the earlier days when only students were allowed through the wards, and all others were refused entry. As time had passed and the concept of a school had evolved, this had become an untenable position, but it was still useful in a pinch.

Now, the wards had to rely primarily on those with the authority to manipulate them to determine who was allowed in, because the school wasn't capable of being nearly as private as it once was. So the real trick to 'penetrating' the wards was to target the headmaster, who had final authority, and could declare a state of emergency, or offer access to an unexpected guest. Was that why the headmaster had been one of the first targets? Or had these time-jumpers just attacked everything in sight and only managed to take Dippet out? They certainly hadn't been interested in killing anyone, which meant they were probably at least as worried as Harry about changing the past. They could know things he didn't about time travel and its consequences, however, especially seeing as they knew how to travel whole YEARS into the past. Harry was still having trouble getting over that one. Nonetheless, interrogating them should help, at least, if he could get anything out of them. Of course, if they had contingencies to prevent information from the future getting out, things could get difficult again.

Harry was brought forcibly out of his thoughts by Madame Pomfrey running into sight, clearly distressed.

"Headmaster! Albus! They've disappeared! They just seemed to fold in on themselves and vanished!"

"The men who we fought?" Albus asked. Mada—Poppy. He needed to call her Poppy. Poppy nodded. "Did any of them appear to have regained consciousness before this happened?" Albus continued. Poppy shook her head again.

"Great. I was afraid something like this might happen," Harry groaned.

"Oh," Dumbledore questioned, "and why didn't you share these suspicions?"

"Well I figured they were unconscious, and couldn't get away. I was more afraid that they'd have a way of resisting interrogation that we hadn't thought of. I was more right than I thought…"

Poppy piped up at this, "And what's more, I placed some tracking spells on each of them before they vanished, but all the spells started going haywire once they disappeared. I'm not sure what to make of it!"

Dippet looked contemplative at this, while Albus stared pointedly at Harry, almost as if Harry could help, but wasn't. He wasn't exactly wrong, but Harry really wasn't going to risk paradoxes and the end of the universe just to ease some tension, much as he might want to.

When Albus spoke up, Harry still wasn't sure what he should say. "Perry, do you have any idea what could have caused this?" It was the open ended question that allowed Harry to think of an appropriate response.

"I have a few. Whatever means they have of transportation is clearly more complex than we thought. We knew it could circumvent the Hogwarts wards, but now we know that it can also be reversed somehow, which apparently doesn't require the user's consciousness. While I suspected there were more than five people chasing me, I never have managed to conclusively prove it. Even now, one could have been faking unconsciousness and triggered the return Poppy saw." Harry looked at Poppy, silently questioning whether she'd detected such an occurrence, but she didn't say anything, so he assumed she hadn't.

"And the tracking spells?" Dippet questioned.

"Those…well to be honest, those make the most sense." Harry paused to consider how best to dance around the truth here. "I've developed a theory about how their transport works, loosely. I think they travel outside of the four dimensions we're used to perceiving. Doing so would likely confound any tracking charms we use that are designed based on our own perceptions and senses."

Albus interrupted him here, "But I thought that the prevailing magical theory was that typical magical transport also transcends these dimensions, allowing us to get around more quickly. Yet these don't mess with tracking spells."

"Yes, you're right. But this is because the spells are specifically designed to track someone who's apparated, or used whatever other magical transport that the average person is familiar with. Their transport is obviously not typical, and capable of things most others wouldn't be. I think it may use _more_ dimensions than our typical instant or nearly instant transportation methods, and these extra dimensions allow more mobility, in addition to confounding traditional tracking spells."

"Do you know any less traditional methods, like the spells you used on me?" Dippet asked.

"Not for tracking, no. I suspect that I may have been dealing with these people for longer than I've been directly aware of them, but I've only been aware I've been actively chased by them for…maybe a few hours now. They were probably behind the curse that hit my friend, but other than that I can't recall many dealings with these specific assailants."

Albus's brows drew together as he said, "So it would seem we're back to square one, where you are seeking asylum at Hogwarts, and by a stroke of good fortune, we may be able to offer it to you. Though whether you'll actually be safer here, or merely a magnet for more danger remains unclear. The enemies can seemingly effortlessly penetrate the wards."

"Well, I may be able to help with the ward issue a bit, which would make the school safer." Harry then remembered that screwing with the timeline like that was highly inadvisable, added, "Though I should...perhaps try these wards in a safer location than a school before endangering all the students here?"

But Dippet spoke up, "As it is currently the last day of July, we do have some time before we would be endangering any students by experimenting with these wards. I see no issue with briefing the staff on the issue and proceeding attempt to secure Hogwarts itself. It will certainly be easier here, with the abundance of ley line energy."

At the mention of the date, Harry froze, missing most of the rest of the sentence. Albus seemed to notice, asking, "Is something wrong, Perry?" in a suddenly tense tone.

"Nothing really…" Harry mumbled, "it's just that…it's my birthday today. I…hadn't realized…" He trailed off as he wondered why, of all things, he had arrived on his birthday. Did whatever had gotten him here only work in exact yearly intervals? Was it a coincidence? Was there any meaning behind the date at all? At least he knew the month and day now.

"Oh dear, you've lost track of the date?" Dippet asked "That's quite unfortunate, how long have you been on the run, exactly?"

Harry though back, trying to remember his cover story. Fortunately, he had some practice at these things. "It's only been a few days, I suppose, but…I don't know. I lost track, things got so hectic. It's been a while since I was thinking of things like birthdays."

"Yes, well, unless you'd like a cake, perhaps we could get back to the matter at hand?" Albus's tone did seem a bit softer, despite his words.

"Yes, and in any case, reinforcing the wards should be our first priority," Dippet agreed.

Harry sighed, resigning himself to more highly technical ward manipulation. This wasn't his favorite part of the job.

* * *

 **A/N: Aaaaaaand cut, take five, that's a wrap people!**

 **Yeah, that took way too long to get out, but all you people really care about is whether or not these chapters will continue to take such a long time to get out. They shouldn't. Until school starts back up again…but even then, I should be able to set some time aside. Should. I'm done making promises. Though the once a week thing is still a goal.**

 **If you're curious, life's a bitch. And it hasn't been nice to me lately, emotionally and physically. Overall, I'm better now. You don't really need more specifics, though you'll probably be interested to know that I'm better because I'm dealing better, not because the problems are gone, so things could go south again.**

 **At any rate, the black magic that's resurrected me from my early grave shouldn't wear off any time soon, so enjoy (hopefully) frequent updates.**

* * *

 **AHEM! Yes, this is new, I did the horizontal line thingie and then had something else to say. Well, it's actually not that new...shut up. Anyway, I'm terribly sorry that only half of this chapter initially uploaded, and I didn't have the nice horizontal line after the author's note. See, I don't think may people realize that those lines are something added once the document is uploaded to fan fic dot net, (who don't let you write their name normally in documents for some reason) in their document editor. So if, say, I've been on hiatus for long enough to forget to do that before posting the chapter, I may miss some small things. Like half a chapter missing. I fixed it now. Enjoy.**

 **BEST OF WISHES, FEAUXEN!**

 **(I forgot to say that. Sorry.)**


	7. thiscoughisnotsuspicious

**A/N: MAYDAY, MAYDAY! CHAPTER ERROR DETECTED! (Look at chapter 6 again, if you were unfortunate enough to read it before I caught my rather large blunder. Now I have to add some content to this chapter, and fast, so that I can have both an acceptable chapter and a notice to everyone that I didn't mean to end the chapter half way through…give me a sec here.**

 ***Loading backup plan…loading…loading…loading failed, backup plan not found***

 **Well shit.**

* * *

*AHEM!*

Umbridge's "coughs" as she would claim they were, when asked, always needed to be surrounded in asterisks to be properly conveyed. Why? Because she was in Azkaban for pissing off Harry Potter. She regretted it, too, but the key to her had been destroyed, all people knowing how to make the key had been obliviated, and she was well and truly stuck.

It sucked.

Wait, that's not right. (Or cannon.)

* * *

I can't think of anything to say right now.

Hermione thought. She thought this because she was still trying to process that mysterious and mind bowing letter that Harry had sent. It didn't even make sense, when she thought about some of the parts of it.

Around her, most of the party guests, aside from Muriel (though most people ingored her anyway, when they weren't wondering why she was even invited) were contemplating in similar silence. Why?

BECAUSE THIS EXCERPT WAS THOUGHT UP IN ABOUT 5 MINUTES AND TAKES PLACE AFTER HARRY'S LETTER WAS READ BUT BEFORE ANYONE TALKED, (except Muriel) THAT'S WHY!

* * *

Is this enough content yet? Maybe.

* * *

BUT MAYBE NOT!

This was screamed into a mysterious man's head by a mysterious woman. Said man was having a complex intellectual debate with said woman, and it wasn't going well. Maybe if his team hadn't screwed up the Potter retrieval, this would be going smoother.

Not even maybe. It would definitely be going better.

But he and his team had dropped the ball. So he was having a very, very bad day.

* * *

"Well, that sure does suck for you, doesn't it." Poppy didn't sound very sympathetic.

"Oh come on, sound at least a little sorry for me Poppy, have a heart," George protested, "I have to deal with a herd of unruly thestrals and I don't have hardly any idea how to OW! OWOWOWOWOW! Yes of course it stings when you do that! But like I was saying, hardly a clue how to wrangle them, and most people wouldn't even be much use against them."

"That's no reason to go out into the middle of _their_ clearing which they have claimed _quite clearly_ for themselves _and don't you say you didn't know, you're the one who told me they'd claimed the clearing_ , then stand in the middle of the herd, and start firing off blasting curses! I don't know what you were thinking!"

George mumbled something about low powered curses and teaching the thestrals who was in charge.

"OH! So it's about who's the _alpha male_ then. YOU are ALSO the one who told me that thestrals were so hard to wrangle because they don't HAVE an alpha male! You were just taking out your frustrations on some innocent thestrals because you couldn't handle them like a civilized person!"

George muttered something darkly about "innocence."

"You're the one who seems to think that being mean will help! Have you even tried offering them food, doing something nice?"

George didn't have anything to mutter darkly about for that one. It was actually a pretty good point…but now he would have to concede graciously, because one doesn't offend one's healer without good reason.

Fortunately, the timely arrival of Albus, the headmaster, and a man who George later learned was named Perry distracted Poppy from the subject, and it was never discussed again. The thestral situation, however, got slowly better after that. Especially after **REDACTEDREDACTEDREDACTED**

 **OOOOOOOOOOOOO**

 **A/N: Yep, that's how I'm ending it. Can't let you know too much, too early on. ;)**

 **I hope that this notifactionary chapter successfully notifies everyone who was confounded by the chapter 6 fiasco. Have a nice day.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


	8. Chapter 8 (The real chapter seven)

**A/N: Hey, guess what!**

 **Chicken butt. (Yep, can't think of anything to say here…)**

* * *

Still reeling a bit from the revelation that he had arrived _exactly_ on his birthday, Harry resignedly followed Albus and Dippet back to the ward room. Poppy had bowed out of this one, after extracting another promise from Harry to teach her "that fiddly bit of healing," and headed back to the infirmary to treat the man who Harry had learned was the Care of Magical Creatures teacher.

Meanwhile, Albus was talking with Dippet on something or other that Harry couldn't summon the interest to care about at the moment, because he was too busy banging his head against a metaphorical wall. He was very familiar with this wall, and liked to think the feeling was mutual, even though the wall was basically his own mental construct designed to help him deal with frustration.

 _I wish I'd never learned anything about wards._ Thud. _I wouldn't be able to get away with that at work, but I_ am _Harry Potter._ Thud. _So maybe I could have used the fame card or something._ Thud. _But no, now I have to both help reinforce Hogwarts' wards decades early._ Thud. _And lie to the man who, later in his life at least, I came to respect more than nearly anyone._ Thud. _WHY DO I ALWAYS GET STUCK WITH THE BUM JOBS._ Thud. _I'M THE HEAD OF THE AUROR OFFICE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD._ After this, there was a lengthy pause, during which Harry was fairly certain the audible conversation concerned wards.

Thud.

 _Hmmm…it's not really the job title that frustrates me though, more the things I end up having to do._ Thud. _Like paperwork._ Thud. _And guard duty._ Thud. _And keeping Ron in check._ Thud. Harry actually cringed a bit at the thought. The toilet was hardly the first such incident. Thud.

Thud. At this point, Harry was pretty sure he was still going for consistency's sake.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thwack. Wait a second...

"Watch where you're going, Perry!"

Ah. He'd crashed into Albus. This was awkward. "Right—Er, sorry about that Albus. I was lost in thought."

"Well we figured that out when you stopped responding to all attempts at communication. The headmaster thought we should just let you mull things over for a few minutes. Now, however, we may need your assistance, as you seem to understand these extra dimensions used for travel better than the average person."

"Right, right. So, did you discuss anything I should know about on the way here? I think I caught something about wards."

"Well, we did discuss a few things, such as whether your methods could help us, and whether I was going about them wrong, but we saved the important conversation for when you were paying attention," Dippet said, "Even if I do most of the work here, you and Albus are here for a reason as well, ingenuity. Three heads think better than one."

"Right," Harry said, slowly deconstructing he mental wall as he pondered how to block travel that could bypass any existing wards. The reason that anti-apparation wards and jinxes worked was that they stopped a person from exceeding a certain number of occupied dimensions, or so the modern theories went. Hermione was fairly certain that house elves got around this by occupying _less_ dimensions at once than any other being could without dying from lack of a third dimension. She'd even run some quasi-conclusive tests, though she hadn't been fully satisfied with the results. She'd said something about extra-temporality or some such, but Harry hadn't caught much of it. The only problem was that she seemed to be quite correct about house elf apparation, and had managed to create a highly revolutionary ward that stopped them from entering an area, though it didn't stop them from leaving. No one was quite sure why that was the case. Albus, Harry's son, had mentioned a theory, but it hadn't sounded like proving it would be very easy at all, from the technobabble.

In any case, Harry thought as Dippet stood in the exact center of the ward scheme and shooed Harry and Albus out of the room, they needed to figure out whether a similar process was possible in this case, with so many extra dimensions. It probably wasn't, unless somehow a two dimensional process could be scaled up to at least four dimensions…this is why Harry hated ward work. Magic was so incredibly flexible that it made coming up with ways to stop it nothing but a massive headache.

"Okay, you two can come in now. I've determined that the wards were triggered, and oddly enough overloaded, by the intruders entry and exit, though the why of it escapes me," Dippet said.

"Are the wards still functional?" Albus asked.

"Quite functional. They weren't overloaded in the traditional sense that so much energy was flooded through them that they failed, these are plugged in to ley lines, so that would be impossible. No, they were apparently assigned a task so monumental that they failed. They didn't burn out, they simply couldn't manage what they were told to do."

Harry wasn't quite sure what that could mean. He knew that the wards worked in an incredibly general way, so any attempt at extra-dimensional entry would have been stopped, unless it had enough power behind it to exceed the power of at least eight ley lines, accounting for the power that would be held in reserve for the rest of the scheme while the attack was thwarted. And even then, the full power of the ley lines should have flowed into the anti-entry ward scheme if it was in danger of being overcome, so the intruders may have overcome all ten ley lines worth of power. Curious, Harry began to extend himself outward, to probe the wards for himself. What he found surprised him so much, he nearly lost concentration and fried his brain. Withdrawing himself as quickly as he could, Harry turned to Albus.

"Say, do you think non-synchronous time travel is possible?"

Albus was so caught off guard by the non-sequitur that his mouth actually dropped open. Closing it, the man thought for a few moments before saying, "In theory, apparation involves non-synchronous time travel, though in miniscule amounts. Frequent apparation has been shown to noticeably extend life, however, indicating that the time travel is forward, not backward. Apart from that and the occasional jaunt into the past with a time turner, I don't know that non-synchronous time travel is possible at all, although portkeys haven't been investigated."

Harry had really just wanted to confirm that the main methods were still available in this time, but that helped. "I can confirm that portkeys have the same temporal drift. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about decades of travel in what the traveler perceives as a few minutes." Harry paused to let that sink in.

Dippet, who had been mostly listening to the speculation so far, said, "Well that's obviously impossible! The department of mysteries wouldn't even exist if such things were possible, because someone from the future would inevitably get the idea to change the past so drastically that secret spell research would be completely irrelevant."

"Headmaster, I'm not talking about what would happen if someone abused the timeline. I'm asking what whether Albus thinks there's a theoretical possibility that one could travel decades in time all at once."

At this, Albus spoke up, "How many, exactly?"

Harry was surprised at that. "I don't really think it would matter too much. Once we get into the possibility of doing more than a time turner, which only gets by because it bends the rules of causality without even trying to accomplish anything major, it's probably similar to getting to the top of a difficult cliff and having to decide only how far you want to walk."

"Perry, if that were the case, why specifically ask about decades? Decades are too small to sound impressive, but larger than years, which most people would ask about when discussing time travel." Albus was too damn smart. It was official. Harry wasn't even sure how to answer that without giving himself away.

"I was asking, Perry, how many decades you have traveled, to get a better idea of what kind of power we are talking about here."

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah, it's really short. They'll get longer if I ever have a better way to build tension than to end a chapter, but in the meantime, I only have one main series of events and one perspective on those events. I can't shift anywhere else and come back, so the chapter must end. I'm sorry. If you have any suggestions, I'm open, though I've considered more than a few and come up empty so far. On the bright side, shorter chapters means less time waiting! So, if you're a fan of less waiting over longer chapters, you're in luck. Of course, if you aren't, and you tell me about it, I may get motivated enough to change something major which I will not name here and fix the issue, but first I need reviewers expressing opinions!**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: So yeah, I fixed the previous chapters…you should at least check out chapter 6, that one was only half finished in the uploaded version because of a file error. The rest only saw some minor changes, though some of those changes fixed some minor continuity errors. Basically, aside from chapter six, if you take what I write going forward over whatever you remember reading you'll be good. Probably. (This doesn't mean I caught all the continuity errors, so feel free to point out any that you notice. Just try to check and see whether I caught them first.)**

* * *

"I was asking, Perry, how many decades you have traveled, to get a better idea of what kind of power we are talking about here."

Harry was quite stunned. Albus Dumbledore was simply too smart. It wasn't fair. And while he could now, in some semblance of good conscience, talk about time travel and the possible consequences, he had no idea what effect that would have on the future. He did still have plausible deniability, though every second spent thinking reduced that advantage.

"I…I'm not sure I should say. In my experience, time travel is one of the most dangerous things in existence, and I've never come back this far. I've only used time turners…" and Merlin, what a nightmare that had been. Harry had nearly destroyed every time turner in existence just so that he would never have to deal with the bloody things again.

"Perhaps if you could give me a rough estimate then?" Albus suggested after a short pause. Harry considered briefly, before nodding.

"So far as I can tell, I'm nearly a century away from my native time. I don't even know the year, but I have been able to determine that much."

Albus looked a bit shocked at that, while Dippet spoke up, saying, "You don't even know the year? Good heavens, you could have asked. It's 1938."

"Ah. Thank you," Harry said, "Though I wasn't really sure how to slip such a question into casual conversation. For now, all that really matters is that I was quite correct in my assumption. I'm not as far back as I was assuming, but I am close." Harry had been entertaining the idea that perhaps he was exactly 90 years in the past, or even 95, but if he was doing his math right, he wasn't even quite 90 years in the past. Perhaps arriving on his birthday, the same day he left from, was a coincidence?

"Well," Albus said, "If I understand you correctly, you are quite displaced from your native time, and the journey here was lengthy?"

"I don't actually know. I was unconscious; the last thing I remember was getting attacked by some invisible attackers. Perhaps even the same ones that pursued me here."

"So when you said that the journey took a few minutes that was pure conjecture?"

"It could have been hours, really. I have no way of telling how long I was out."

"And may I also presume that your history was entirely fabricated?"

"Oh…yes. Well, some of it bordered on the truth, but most of it was an outright lie, yes."

Albus paused again, considering. "Do you have a theory about how the intruders got in, then? You did seem to be onto something when you brought up time travel."

"Well…this is just a theory, mind, but I don't think the wards were quite set up right to completely block someone traveling through time like they were. It's entirely possible that while the wards can try to block them, as they exceed the typical occupation of the four standard dimensions, they'll never succeed because when you travel in higher dimensions, like a time traveler would theoretically have to, you have to be blocked in a different way. When I looked at the wards myself, that's what it looked like to me; the wards tried to block something they just weren't designed for and only partially succeeded."

"Wait, you looked at the wards too?" Dippet interjected, "And what do you mean by partially? It didn't look like the wards succeeded at all to me."

"Of course I looked at the wards; it's easier to tell for myself what might have happened. And the wards may not have stopped the entry, but I know these wards. They put all their power into stopping the intruders and that has to have done something. It certainly alerted you, if nothing else."

"Okay, so the wards can at least detect these entries, and attempt to stop them," Albus said, "Should we start there?"

"That's probably about the only place we can start, we don't know very much else." Harry wondered whether this would even work, blocking a method of travel that only existed in the craziest of theories. Magical theories, anyway…

"Well then," Dippet said, "Let's get started!"

* * *

Harry was exhausted. Physically, he was fine, but mentally, he wasn't sure he could go on much longer. Wards were hardly his area of expertise on a good day, and he'd just spent five long hours attempting to create a new, theoretical ward to stop a theoretical method of travel that he might not even understand.

Harry was ready to go home, find the nearest soft object, and fall over, asleep before impact. Unfortunately, the closest he'd get to that was his new quarters. Or the temporary quarters he was provided until the current defense professor moved out. And now that his biggest secret was out, who knew whether that would even happen?

Finding his quarters and flopping down onto the bed, Harry was quite surprised to find something hard underneath his pillow. After briefly contemplating the issue, he reached under the pillow found a small box, and brought it out. Inside was a very short note.

 _Have patience._

 _Have perseverance._

 _-F_

And that was all. Not really sure what to make of it, Harry decided the least he could do was pull out the Marauder's Map and see whether someone was running around the castle who might be responsible for the note. Too tired to check the whole castle, he opened just his floor, only to find something very important missing. He double checked, but there was no mistaking it. His dot with a name on it was missing. Unless he was reading the map wrong, the room he was in also didn't exist. What the heck?

Suddenly, the map's neat, orderly lines got jumbled up, squiggled around for a bit, and then re-ordered themselves into words.

 _Mr. Moony would like to know what just happened. Hogwarts does not rearrange itself idly in such a dramatic fashion._

Oh dear. He'd upset the Marauders, or whatever personalities they'd managed to imprint on the map. Tapping the map, he said, "It wasn't the castle that changed to drastically, you've been off for quite some time. You simply needed to catch up." Almost hesitantly, more words began to form.

 _How long, exactly?_

Tapping the map again, Harry said, "I'm not sure you would believe me. Now I was investigating a matter of some urgency, if you don't have any more questions."

 _Mr. Prongs would like to suggest that if you had a matter of some urgency, you should have considered the consequences of reactivating such an old artifact before investigating it._

"Damnit, dad," Harry muttered. Tapping the map once more, Harry pointedly asked, "What would you have done, prongs?"

 _He would have activated said ancient artifact, wrung it for answers, and then turned it into a hat should those answers disappoint him._

 _Padfoot!_

 _You would have, and you know it._

 _Mr. Moony wonders exactly how urgent this matter was._

"Good ole' Lupin," Harry muttered. Always the mediator, that one. Tapping again, Harry replied, "Possibly life changing. Possibly nothing more than a prank, or even a mystery gift. I was rather hoping I could find out using this map." A swirl of ink played across the page before the map resolved back to its normal appearance, this time with the room, and Harry's dot in the correct place, if mislabeled. Talking to the marauders was always…interesting. They rarely showed themselves, though even when they did, they were usually more cryptic and distant than that. Perhaps the time displacement scrambled more than just the modified protean charm that copied the castle's layout.

Deciding that he may as well check the whole castle, now that he was more awake from his conversation, Harry began at his dot, labeled simple 'Perry Hotter' and swept his eyes over the vast, mostly empty castle. As any do with a name stood out, it didn't take long to determine that no one who shouldn't be there was currently in the castle. Albus Dumbledore was pacing, as he often had when Harry was a student, though he was in a different office, this one on the fourth floor, a bit closer to his transfiguration classroom. Harry smiled to himself. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

* * *

Waking fairly early in the morning, the first thing Harry did was head to the great hall. He'd forgotten to grab a bite the night before, and now he was famished. He found a single round table waiting for him, with a dozen or so chairs at it. To his mild surprise, Albus was already there, having a conversation with a round faced witch who Harry didn't recognize. At his entrance, Albus look up and, realizing who it was, said, "Ah. Here he is. This is Perry Hauter, Sarah."

"Is it now?" Harry noticed a slight Scottish lilt to her cheerful tone, "Well come come, sit down, it sounds like you're quite the interesting fellow, now doesn't it?"

Harry shot a questioning glance at Albus, who didn't appear to notice. "Well, I suppose I did have a bit of an interesting day yesterday. So, which parts have you heard about so far?"

"Oh, I heard about the bit where you fought off those intruders, I was just askin' Albus here what else you'd done. I hear you're after the Defense position though?"

Caught a bit off guard by the change of subject, Harry simply said, "Well, I do think I could do a fair job at teaching defense. It's something I've done in the past." Albus' eyes widened very slightly at that.

"Oh, so where was that then?"

"Well, to be honest, I was actually a student myself at the time. I…taught a few of my fellow students some tricks I knew. It was more of a club than a class, but most of my friends told me I'd do just fine in a classroom setting, and I have learned all the necessary skills since." _In addition to training a fair few auror candidates_ , Harry thought, _but I don't think I should go around telling everyone about my complicated past._

Albus, who apparently also saw the danger of talking about Harry's past, interjected, saying, "Yes, but more importantly he can hold his own in a fight. He thinks on his feet, and if he can convey that ability alone to his students, the rest of us generally teach enough magic for one to survive off of. Not that I expect you to slack off in practical defensive spells, Perry."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it Albus. Practical skills are some of the most important things we teach here, next to common sense about when to use your magic. Especially in uncertain times like these."

Appearing a bit put off with that thought, the witch continued, "So other than fight off some intruders, what did you do yesterday? I know there was more, Albus was about to mention something when you walked in."

Harry groaned out loud. Looking at him strangely, Albus said, "As the intruders managed to bypass the wards, we spent most of the afternoon attempting to figure out how they had done so, and how to stop them from doing so again."

"And I hate working with wards," Harry groaned, "They're complicated, they require incredible precision, and I hate them." He took a bite of eggs with more vigor than was strictly necessary.

"Yet you have a talent for working with them that few do," Albus commented.

"Occupational hazard," Harry said, trying very hard not to think about it.

"Oh," the witch said, "and what profession would that be?"

"Self defense," Harry said, before taking another bite of eggs, this time as an excuse to let Albus take over the conversation.

But apparently, he didn't need to, as the conversation was derailed at that point by a very keen whistling sound that Harry had hoped would at least wait a few days before sounding.

The modifications to the wards were currently undergoing their first field test.

* * *

 **A/N: Will I ever not end on a cliffhanger? I don't know. It makes it easier for me, certainly as I can simply think of one (or more, if I have time for a longer chapter) tense moment to work towards, and then finish off the chapter once I get there.**

 **At any rate, it hasn't yet (technically) been a week since last upload, so here we are with another chapter, (technically [BUT SHUT UP]) on time.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Did I catch everyone off guard with my upload significantly** _ **before**_ **midnight? More than half the people who visited the story were a day late! Not that I mind terribly, but that hasn't happened before. Although on second thought it could just be that more people got to the story the day it came out when given more than an hour or two to do so. At any rate, new chapter, get reading.**

* * *

The modifications to the wards were currently undergoing their first field test.

"Oh come on," Harry muttered, before stuffing one last bite of eggs into his mouth and standing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Albus doing much the same thing.

"What's going on? Albus?" The witch who was still sitting at the table asked.

"Well, as Perry and I were just telling you, we made some modifications to the wards yesterday. The alarm currently sounding is in place specifically to indicate that those modifications are being tested. We had planned—" Harry missed the rest, already leaving the room and looking for the nearest north-facing window. If all went well, the intruders would be stunned and redirected just outside of the ward boundary near the entrance to the school. Finding a window, he looked out, casting a supersensory charm so that he could see all the way to the gates. Nothing was there. Great.

Turning, Harry saw Albus running towards him. "I don't think it worked, Albus, I can't see any redirected intruders."

"They may be invisible. After failing to apprehend you twice, caution would certainly be merited."

"I'll go out and check in person then; you find the headmaster and let anyone else you meet know that we may have invisible intruders. The headmaster should at least know where they entered, if nothing else." Nodding, Albus turned and ran off toward the headmaster's office. Pausing only to cast a few precautionary enchantments on his robes, Harry quickly vanished the glass in the window and jumped out. A stunt like that would only ever work from inside, but as he was on the first floor, in a hurry, and the nearest entrance was quite distant, it would do for now. Conjuring the glass back with hardly a rearward glance, Harry started running across the grounds to the entrance. Reflecting briefly that it would be simpler and easier, if a bit less secure, to transport the intruders inside the castle, Harry swiftly reached the gate. Pausing to catch his breath and listen, he tried to detect whether any intruders were outside of the gates, unconscious or not. He couldn't hear any breathing, smell anything other than the stones in the path and the tang of the gate, and obviously couldn't see out of the ordinary, despite the supersensory charm that was still active. Great.

Continuing just beyond the ward boundary to the exact spot that he, Albus, and the headmaster had set up the previous day, however, Harry nearly tripped over something invisible.

"Finite Incantatem!" Harry cast at whatever it was. The spell was visibly stopped about six inches off of the ground, but nothing suddenly popped into view, as one might have expected.

"Lovely." Remembering that the Egyptian Hylesion had worked the last time traditional methods had failed, Harry quickly ran over what he knew about that in his head. It worked in absolutes, catching magic that was designed not to interact with other magic, and detecting things designed to be completely undetectable. Or at least, that was what the spells _he_ knew at the moment could do. Nonetheless, probably worth a shot.

"Ijhellatu jhame!" This time, when the spell impacted, the unconscious body of a young man suddenly appeared, as well as the sounds of breathing, and the smell of flesh. Oddly, his robes didn't look too much like the ones on the intruder's from the previous day, but Harry didn't have time to contemplate this. Harry had quite suddenly remembered a catch to Egyptian Hylesion. There was no halfway with the techniques, and whatever you were trying to do would be done as well as it could with the magical power you could provide. And as the wards which had knocked the man lying before him unconscious extended their influence just shy of where he lay, Harry had just woken the man up. Bugger.

Eyes snapping open, the man sat up with the suddenness of someone waking from a nightmare. "Wha-! Where—"

"Stupefy!"

That could have gone better. Oh well, at least he'd managed to confirm that the modifications had worked as desired. Focusing on a vision of his wedding day, Harry prepared to send a patronus to Albus, only to see a silvery form rushing towards him from the castle. Almost mistaking it for Albus's phoenix at first, he realized as it drew closer that this bird was actually slightly smaller, more like a raven. Now whose patronus could that be?

The silvery bird reached him and, landing on the ground in front of him, began to speak, "I found Armando, and he confirmed that the wards, while stressed, appear to have worked and rejected the intruders. We will join you shortly." The bird spoke, to Harry's amazement, in Albus' firm, not yet grandfatherly tone. Come to think of it, Harry had yet to see Fawkes in this time. Had Albus not acquired his familiar yet? When would he?

Putting the matter aside, Harry turned back to the man at his feet. How many were there this time? Apparently whatever nondetection magic they were using prevented them from being heard, as well as smelled, though not felt. It couldn't prevent them from being solid. Feeling around, Harry soon found four more bodies on the ground. Casting the Egyptian counterspell and stunning each of them in quick succession, Harry was just beginning to wonder whether there was a better way of finding the invisible people than blundering into them when Albus and Dippet arrived.

"Ah, good work Perry, I see you found the intruders," Dippet said.

"Yeah, but I did have to use more Egyptian Hylesion to find them. Whatever they use to hide is just as complicated as everything else they do. I couldn't even smell them with a supersensory charm."

"Fascinating," Albus said, "Do you think that's part of their ability to circumvent the wards?"

"Well, it could be, although whatever it is that allows them to travel through time may just be complex enough on its own that the wards can't-or couldn't-handle it. I suspect that their spells are all some unknown discipline that we would have a hard time understanding, even if they were explained to us."

"Speaking of," Dippet said, "Shouldn't we get one of our friends here to talk about just who they are and what they are trying to do? If they have a time limit that will recall them back whence they came, we should get right to it, should we not?"

"Not a bad idea," Harry mused, "Albus, help me search this one, would you? If we're going to interrogate him, we should make sure he can't surprise us with any nasty tricks."

"Of course." With that, Harry and Albus began casting several complicated detection and modified summoning charms, attempting to remove any and all dangerous objects from his body. First, his wand flew into Albus's hand, while a few knives from either leg and a few interior pockets flew towards Harry, who stopped them, realizing he couldn't hold all of them at once, and vanished the lot. A few spells later, at a nod from Albus, Harry bent over the man, preparing to wake him. Remembering a certain paranoid auror made him pause, however, and he instead pulled open the man's robes. Wearing nothing but a simple black shirt and trousers underneath, the man didn't appear to have anything else to hide. The clothing was fairly loose; however, reminding him of something Hermione had once told him. Lightly patting the man's chest and sides, Harry felt a few suspect lumps under the man's shirt. Reaching underneath it, he found something quite surprising: grenades. Probably charmed in a similar manner to the man himself, these had escaped the magical search, and could easily have turned the tables in an interrogation setting. This man was prepared for anything.

"What are those?" Albus asked from behind him.

"These? These are grenades," Harry paused, "Do you have grenades yet?"

"Yes, we do, although they tend to be a bit bigger. More importantly, how did these escape our notice?"

"The same way these guys keep turning invisible. They can prevent magic, or most magic anyway, from detecting things, up to and including at least a human being." Vanishing the grenades as he said this, Harry patted down the man's legs as well. "The only way to find something they've hidden is to touch it, or nearly trip over it, like I did these guys. They can't prevent things from acting solid, at least. Aha!" He'd found another two knives sheathed by the man's ankles. Vanishing these as well, Harry stood back up. "At least muggle searches will still work. Now, shall we?"

Nodding, Albus said, "We should probably be a little more cautious, however, if our subject is so well prepared. Incarcerous!" Ropes appeared and bound the man's entire body.

Nodding his approval, Harry squatted down to arrange the man in a rough sitting position. Satisfied that the man at least wouldn't be laying on the ground and squirming, Harry pointed his wand and cast, "Enervate."

The man's eyes snapped open. Seeing Harry, his face bent in frustration, until he noticed Albus and Dippet standing behind him. Eyes widening in panic, the man said one word, "No…" before he promptly vanished, almost appearing to collapse in on himself. The others promptly did the same.

Left with his arm supporting a now nonexistent shoulder, Harry could really only come up with one thing to say.

"Well…great."

* * *

Harry's fingers tightened around his wand. Unable to determine much about the intruders, he, Albus, and Dippet had gone back up to the castle, where they were met with the defense professor from the previous day. She'd managed to guess what was going on, and after hearing what had happened, had decided that she was going to stick around for the summer, at least. Not that it would stop her from putting Harry through some "inquisitive training," as she put it. After discussing various points of Defense Against the Dark Arts with him, and deciding that he had a good head on his shoulders, apparently there was really only one thing to do. He couldn't really argue that the final test of one's defensive knowledge was to duel them and probe that knowledge yourself, he trained aurors in exactly the same way. That didn't make him less nervous about going up against the witch who had trained Albus Dumbledore and taught defense for 50 years. Or 43 at present, but that was still very impressive, and not likely a fraction of her resume.

This was going to be an interesting duel. Albus Dumbledore himself was overseeing it.

"Wands at the ready!"

Harry held his wand at his side and widened his stance. Across from his, his opponent adopted a more traditional stance, almost like a fencing form. Harry saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and was moving even as Albus formed the word, "Begin!"

Harry wasn't really sure what the first spell that came toward him was, and it didn't matter. He bent nearly 90 degrees at the waist and it passed harmlessly over his head, even as his wand formed the motions of a simple firework hex. Aiming while looking away from an opponent is difficult, so he settled for a distraction. The spell shot off as he straightened, adjusting himself so that the follow up stunner didn't strike his body. Seeing that his spell was impacting a shield, Harry allowed himself a brief feeling of satisfaction, before pummeling the shield with seven spells in the space of three seconds. Each had its purpose, though the shield went down after the fifth and Harry's opponent leapt with surprising grace to the side, apparently recognizing the final two spells and their ability to surround a shield with water, before encasing it in ice, effectively trapping the target.

Harry very quickly lost track of events after that, he was so busy reacting to attacks and thinking of ways to slip past his opponents defenses. She was good. He wasn't sure he would win without a stroke of fortune; she appeared to have similar stamina to him. In a brief moment of reflection in between a stunner and the lightning he conjured in response to it, Harry thought that perhaps this job wasn't worth the trouble, before he had to leap to the side to prevent the lightning, redirected through some swiftly conjured metal, from frying him. After several more attacks, retaliations, and swift calculations in brief moments of respite, Harry finally saw his chance. A patch of ice he'd conjured earlier had knocked his opponent off balance, and as her wand arm flailed, he swiftly conjured a snake around her arm, where she would have a very difficult time getting the right angle to vanish it. Seizing the moment of distraction, he sent three stunners at his opponent, two on either side of her head and one squarely at her chest. Caught off guard by the spells not aimed to hit her, and the snake which she just managed to vanish by flipping her wand around in her hand, Galatea Merrythought was hit solidly by the stunner, and slumped to the ground, unconscious. Half a second later, a disarming charm sent her wand flying into Harry's hand. Keeping his wand trained on her, and keeping her well within his field of vision, Harry looked over at Albus, who was still busy clearing a stray bit of ice off of his dueling wards. The ice vanished in chunks, and as Albus looked out at the veritable battlefield, he raised his left hand, the one closer to Harry.

"Victor: Perry Hauter!" he cried, beginning to dismantle the wards that surrounded him. Relaxing, Harry lowered his wand. Looking around him, he took in the burn scars, the pit of conjured acid that was slowly eating away at the floor in between him and Galatea, and the various patches of ice and a few stranger conjurations that littered the arena. Well, he'd been right. That was a very interesting duel. Harry had learned at least three new ways to use spells that he'd not thought of before. One had nearly cost him the duel. He glanced again at the pit acid again, this time vanishing the liquid and conjuring the stone floor back where it had been. It was certainly on way to prevent your opponent from getting close. Harry had nearly fallen into the damn thing when Galatea had caught him off guard as he charged forward, firing spells the whole way. He wasn't even sure what the plan was should he have fallen into the pit. Perhaps it was a slow acting corrosive, and extraction would have been simple, if he was removed quickly enough. Oh well, running headlong into his own shield had prevented that unfortunate scenario. It had also hurt a rather lot.

Putting that memory far, far behind him, Harry walked over to the unconscious defense professor. Raising his own wand, and standing a few cautious feet away, Harry enervated her. And nothing happened. Figuring she was probably playing possum, Harry said, "Well, that was quite a fight. I don't think I've had a fight like that in years, at least. You've certainly earned your stripes as a talented defense professor."

Galatea lay still, breathing steadily.

Harry sighed. "You know, I was your opponent, I would have noticed any spells that a wakening charm wouldn't counter. I hit you a grand total of twice, and once was only with a conjured snake. I know you're awake."

Galatea continued breathing.

"Fine! I'll leave you here and do all the hard cleaning work myself," Harry exclaimed in frustration, before adding under his breath, "You lazy bum." He then proceeded to cast restorative charms on his surroundings, fixing the various burns, vanishing conjurations, and _always_ keeping aware that his opponent was still lying on the ground, pretending to be unconscious. As he crossed the room to deal with his initial icy spheroid attack that had ended up splattering quite impressively on the wall, Harry saw Albus, finally done dismantling the complex dueling mediator's wards; bend over to check on the "unconscious" professor. His suspicions were further reinforced when Albus simply stood, turned, and left the room. He was on his way to inform the headmaster of the duel, and its results, no doubt.

Nearly done cleaning up, Harry noticed an odd hole in the wall that ran parallel to the roughly defined 'lane' that he had been dueling in. It appeared to have been gouged out by some extreme magic, leaving a hole roughly the size of a human torso. Whatever spell had done this certainly wasn't a pretty one, that was for sure. He was trying to recall a moment in the duel when such a spell would have been warranted, but his memory was still mostly a blur of indecipherable action. Then it hit him; he'd conjured an acromantula, secretly enchanted to be highly spellproof. Whatever curse had made this hole must have bounced off of a fang or something, because if it had hit a fleshy bit, enchantment or no, the acromantula would have been history. Thinking back to the odd lightish blue smear with hairy, arachnid legs he'd cleaned up just a few minutes earlier, Galatea had probably hit something fleshy with a very similar spell, or even the exact same one. The only problem was that the hole in the wall wasn't an easy fix. He'd tried basic repairing charms, and even conjuring a chunk of stone into the hole, but it refused to fuse with the surrounding stone, probably because of the residual magic. Throwing up his hands in frustration, Harry walked back over to the unconscious form on the floor.

"Well, you have my congratulations, professor; you've exceeded my repairing capabilities. Whatever you hit that acromantula with also made a hole in the wall, and I can't figure out how to fix it. Now I could use some help, and you would probably at least know something about how to fix whatever you cast."

Harry could swear that Galatea's lips twitched towards a smile, but he couldn't be sure.

"All right then, you want to play that way? Let's play." _Levicorpus!_ The professor's body was jerked suddenly into the air by the ankle. Her eyes finally shot open in surprise, and a short yelp escaped her lips.

"Are you more willing to talk now, Professor?" Harry asked?

"Yes, yes, I submit! My goodness, I thought you might let down your guard and try to prod me awake, not yank me up by my ankle!"

"I once had a teacher who, among other things, was obscenely paranoid, and liked pointing out just how useful that was in daily life, especially with as many enemies as he had. I may not have made as many enemies as he did, but I certainly do subscribe to his mantra: Constant Vigilance!" Harry shouted the last bit, just for effect.

"…I see. Now could you perhaps let me down? It will be a bit hard to think with all the blood rushing to my head." Harry obligingly let her down, gently. "Right, now let's take a look at this hole then."

Following the professor over to the hole, Harry quietly waited for the realization.

"Hmm…you wouldn't happen to have confiscated my wand, would you?" Galatea asked, turning to face him.

Smirking a bit, Harry simply said, "Constant vigilance," as he reached into his robes and offered the wand in question.

"Indeed," she mused, turning back to the hole she'd made. "Ah, the Greek excavation charm. Reworked a tad for combat there's not a whole lot this thing can't get through. One drawback, as you've noticed, is that the combat version, a class three dark curse, is a bit hard to clean up after, and even to defend against. When even this bounced off of your spider, I was quite sure I was done for until a second managed to deal with it." Turning, Galatea gave Harry a bit of a questioning glance.

"Well, the acromantula was a special conjuration, designed by a friend of mine. There were several magic-resistant enchantments woven into its form, and I think you probably hit a hard bit of the carapace, or a fang, and the additional hardness of the natural armor reinforced the enchantments enough that the spell was mostly deflected. I'll admit, I was surprised when I realized what magnitude of spell had bounced off of the beast as well, as you discovered, one good hit was quite adequate to take it down."

"Mmm. Well, the trick to fixing spell damage like this is to be the one who cast it. The residue that's interfering with magic is tuned to my own, so I can simply," she waved her wand, leaving an unassuming stretch of wall behind, "wave my wand and fix it."

"I see. That's a neat trick, where'd you learn it?"

Galatea sighed. "Basic auror training, year three. It was quite some time ago, and even with a war on they don't teach it anymore. It's simply too powerful, and it was classified as a dangerous dark curse. Like most powerful magic, it's only truly dark because of its lack of uses other than in combat, and its sheer capacity to maim. The original charm is far better in nearly every application, but it just takes too long to cast for combat."

"You were an auror?" Harry was mildly surprised; aurors didn't commonly end up teaching, especially without the curse on the defense position.

"Yes, I was fully fledged for a year before my predecessor was killed in an unfortunate accident. I'd always taken a shine to the class, and Headmaster Black thought that a young auror with a fresh perspective would make a lovely defense professor, so he hired me. I like to think he had good judgment, even if it was a bit touch and go at first."

Harry was fascinated with how much of Hogwarts' history he was learning. Being in the past was definitely a factor, but he was finding out things he'd never really thought about before, things that normally wouldn't affect him. Of course, this latest nugget of information meant a little more to him, because he'd just found that his predecessor had a very similar background to him. He'd been an active auror for longer, to be sure, and in a very different time under different circumstances, but he'd ended up back at Hogwarts just like she had. He almost asked for advice from a fellow auror, before remembering that for the sake of caution regarding the timeline, only Albus, who had deduced the truth, and Dippet, who had been present to hear it, knew his true history. To everyone else, he was simply a talented man with a vague history.

It was almost as frustrating as being the bloody boy-who-lived.

Breaking him out of his thoughts, Galatea said, "That was quite the fight though."

Harry huffed out a short laugh, "Tell me about it. It's still mostly a blur of trying very desperately not to get hit, and devise some way to actually trip you up. I thought I was pretty good, but you've got _moves._ "

"Why thank you. I could say the same about you though, where did you come up with all those techniques?"

Harry hesitated only the briefest of moments before saying, "On the frontlines of a war." It wasn't really a lie, the daily life of an auror felt a whole lot like that of a soldier, from Harry's experience.

"Oh? You've been fighting on the mainland then?"

Well now he nearly had to lie. Grimacing a bit, Harry simply said, "Yes, a bit." He hadn't been to mainland Europe very much in his life, though he had gotten in a few petty scuffles when visiting. Harry placed the blame entirely on Ron for most of them. The man simply wasn't a very subtle drunk.

"I see," Galatea said, "well that should give you a good background when you start teaching the youngsters how to defend themselves." She offered him a smile that seemed a bit reassuring.

Returning the smile, Harry replied, "Well, as long as I don't scare the sock off of them. I remember one teacher I had in particular who could strike fear into the heart of the most grizzled veteran. Effective, but hardly appropriate for a school."

"Well, as long as you keep that in mind, I certainly don't have any problem with you succeeding me as defense professor. You'll make a fine teacher, and you really know your stuff." Galatea extended her hand towards him to shake, "Congratulations, Professor Hauter,"

* * *

 **A/N:What's this? An early chapter upload? And it's even pretty damn long (at least compared to my other chapters, nearly all of which are shorter by at least 1,000 words)? Well, I had a bunch of spare time, and about the same amount of inspiration, so you people get a special treat today. Tonight. Whichever it ends up being. Anyway, time to talk about interesting things that happened in the chapter, or perhaps are yet to come (heehehee).**

 **Did you know that whence actually means from what place, from which, or from where? I didn't until I decided that Dippet should use the word. It does add new meaning to the classical "Back to/from whence you came!" that fictional characters are fond of spouting. Put that way, there's an implied repeated from, or an awkward "to from" that makes no grammatical sense. Anyway, the real point here is that I'm trying to make the characters from the 20** **th** **century speak a bit more formally and old timey, in contrast to Harry's very modern vernacular. The difference wouldn't be too jarring, as wizarding society is fairly insular, but I am trying to interject it subtly in a few places.**

 **Oh, and anyone who knows or figures out why Harry is specifically in 1938 gets a free (and totally not imaginary) cookie. You have all the information you need to figure out what would have drawn him to that specific year. Harry will remain blissfully unaware of the reason until he's completely blindsided by it, but you, my internet citizens, have a distinct advantage or three over him. Have fun!**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Heeheeheeheeheehee…I've just had a marvelous idea, one worthy of Rowling herself, in my opinion. Heck, it may be part of why the Harry Potter books were so fleshed out with detail and attention and a clear direction. Well, her version of the idea anyway.**

 **In other news,** **Harry Potter and the Cursed Child** **has come out. It's a great read, and I'd recommend it to any Harry Potter fan, especially us fanfiction readers and writers, because it's probably the biggest fanfic to hit bookshelves since that guy wrote about Albus, James, Scorpius, and the rest of the next generation's lives at Hogwarts and got published, with some approval from Rowling. But, as the main action and meat of the play takes place firmly in 2020, I'm afraid that my fic needs to address it somehow, and I'm afraid that while many plot points and quirks would be fascinating to absorb into my fic's cannon, many things also very firmly would not.**

 **I may make some rather major (and possibly even spoiler-y) references in this fic going forward, because the playwrights created a fun universe, though we'll see, and nothing too official has been drawn up. Just be aware, there is more Harry Potter lore out there (some of which rather majorly disagrees with mostly unrevealed plot points of my story) and it's a great read. I'd even recommend and Londoners who are lucky enough to have the play in their city go see it, though the cliffhanger between part one and part two is positively despicable, so I wouldn't see it for the first time in parts. If you happen to be if the unfortunate lands outside of the realms where there's a play to see though, the play script is a really good read, with plenty of action, some real feeling and emotions, and a fascinating look at the Harry Potter universe.**

 **Though I do question a few of the author's decisions about plot points. Honestly, just because REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED in the fight at the Ministry doesn't mean that they can't REDACTED** _ **REDACTED REDACTED**_ **.**

 **Oh. That may have gotten into some spoilers there. My apologies, I'll allow you all to read the story unspoiled. Anyway, back to my story…**

* * *

"Congratulations, Professor Hauter," Galatea said, extending her hand for a congratulatory shake. Harry stared dumbly.

Then the strangest thing happened. With a small pop, almost like the aparation of a house elf, but quieter, a small box appeared in midair about a foot off the ground, before falling with a light thud. Harry continued to stare dumbly for approximately half a second before his auror training kicked in.

"Protego!" he shouted, erecting a shield around the box while hastily grabbing Galatea and backing away.

"What is it?" she asked. Her wand was now at the ready.

"I have no idea. And that's enough to put me on edge. Whatever it is, it may have even penetrated the wards of Hogwarts itself, unless I miss my guess, and anyone willing to send something like that has a very, very good reason to do so. So far, we've been attacked by personnel sent in through the wards without permission, personnel who always retreat before we can question them. I wouldn't put it past them to be trying a new approach."

As if on cue, the shrill whistling that indicated the new wards activating began to shriek.

Galatea looked around, "And what might that be? The headmaster said something about a new ward earlier, and also not to worry."

"That, I'm afraid, means that the new ward is active. Which means that in all likelihood we are under attack once more," Harry almost cringed at the thought. They just kept coming, didn't they? Then another thought occurred to him, "Of course, another possibility is that this triggered the ward, but also drained it so greatly that it needed to recharge for a few seconds before activating its secondary function, the alarm. In that case, we should be even more cautious, because the ward successfully worked earlier, and whoever sent this put quite a great deal of effort behind it."

Calling forth a memory of his wedding day, the joy of holding his newlywed wife in his arms, Harry focused the joy into a message, and then pushed both through the incantation, "Expecto Patronum!" Prongs burst from his wand and disappeared in search of the headmaster to inform him of the unexpected box that had appeared.

"Who was that for?"

"Dippet will want to know where the ward breach is precisely if he can't pin it down himself, and also that there are two people on-site, ready for action."

"Good idea," Galatea said, turning her attention back to the box. It was small and square, perhaps a foot long, wide, and tall. Overall, it didn't seem terribly threatening, though it did look almost faint, as though it faded from reality a bit before being brought forcibly back. It could have been a trick of the color, but it could have been an unusual enchantment as well, and many other things besides.

After a period of silence, Harry turned to Galatea and was about to ask whether they should back off more, or perhaps even investigate, when a familiar silver raven swooped up behind them and spoke in Albus voice, "Armando has determined that the ward failed, but the only disturbance was near your reported location. It was quite a focused assault, so you are likely dealing with the only intrusion. We will join you momentarily, until then it would be wise not to approach."

Harry took that in for a second before asking, "So, should we back off a bit more, just in case?"

"We should be far enough away to react, without being so far that it will be unclear what to do."

"Hmm."

And so they waited.

Harry was just beginning to theorize vaguely about the possible intentions of the nebulous force that kept attacking when he heard footsteps. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Galatea turn. He maintained his focus on the box, and his shield, just in case. Beside him, Galatea called out, "Albus, Armando, it's good to see you. Do you have any idea what's going on? Could the wards detect what penetrated them?"

"I'm afraid that as a new ward, detecting much more than the status using Hogwarts' auxiliary wards is presently beyond us. None of Hogwarts' other wards but our newly erected one would have effected this object's transit," Dippet replied, confirming Harry's fears. They could be dealing with anything here.

"Sweet Morgana, what kind of transit are we dealing with here? I though Hogwarts' wards kept everything out!" Galatea exclaimed, clearly distressed at what may as well have been a universal constant being broken. Hogwarts' wards were just that secure, especially in the minds of the people. Of course, Harry knew a thing or two that challenged those ideals.

"House elves can get in, Galatea," Harry said, pausing to let that sink in.

"What?"

"Of course, the average witch or wizard doesn't give it a second thought, but what is the highest law of a house elf, something that overrides everything else they know?"

Galatea appeared puzzled, but she, like most witches and wizards who knew of house elves, knew the answer to this question, "Their master's orders," she said, "But what does that have to do with this?"

"Galatea, call a house elf from the kitchens for me," Harry said, "Surely you know at least one by name, as a professor."

Galatea furrowed her brow briefly, but then called out, "Mupsy!"

And, with the signature pop, a house elf appeared behind Harry. He heard it say, "Yes, miss professor? Is you wanting something?"

"Mupsy, thank you for coming," Harry interjected, "I was actually curious what you could tell me about this box over here. It could be dangerous, but do you perhaps have a subtle way to find out?"

Harry was still focusing on the box, and maintaining his shield, but he knew from experience, bitter experience in a few cases, that a shield meant little to a determined house elf. He also happened to know that detecting something with the potential to harm their master was a house elf specialty. So while he heard small noises of surprise at the question, he himself wasn't surprised, even when, after only a few seconds of focus, the house elf spoke up again.

"The shield is stopping something from happening, sir," Mupsy began, moving a few steps forward, "and Mupsy can't tell what it is. But it isn't bad, sir, or dangerous. This box might be a trick by some tricksy student, but if you'd like, I can remove it, sir."

"Thank you Mupsy, but if this is as harmless as a prank, we can take care of it outselves," Harry said, relaxing, "Unless Galatea has something else, you may return to work."

After a quick look at Galatea, the elf apparated away.

"Now, Galatea, can you tell me what was odd about that encounter there? There were a few things, but one was quite important."

Galatea thought for a few seconds. "Is it how quickly the elf determined that the box was harmless?"

Harry subtly shook his head, still not relaxed enough to take his eyes off of the box. "No, though Mupsy's declaration that the box wasn't more harmful than a prank at worst was quite surprising, though I'm inclined to believe her. There was something monumental that just happened, however, right here at Hogwarts itself and no one blinked. What was that?"

This time, it was Albus that responded, "A being apparated, worked magic, and then proceeded to disapparate. Within arguably the most powerful wards in Britain, Europe, and some say the world."

The silence was profound.

After waiting several seconds, Harry broke the silence to say, "And no one even blinked. Because everyone who know anything about house elves knows that their highest, unbreakable law is their master's orders, and the house elf in question was simply following orders. What's so unusual about that?"

This time, Harry could nearly hear the wheels turning in the professors' heads.

"So," Galatea hesitantly asked, "are you saying that penetrating Hogwarts' wards isn't just possible, it's _easy?_ " She sounded quite rightfully scared of the notion.

"Of course not. _Most_ witches and wizards overlook house elves, but Hogwarts has the largest population in Britain at least, and whoever hired all of them knew what they were doing. It turns out that a house elf, while capable of bringing someone along via side-along apparation, cannot get through any wards a wizard could not while doing so. They also can't bring anything too complicated along with them, or even too big. Certainly nothing more dangerous than a muggle weapon, as those are unenchanted. If they attempt to bring something like that with them, they begin to trigger and get stopped by wards just like a wizard would. And once that research had been done, it was clearly decided that while overlooking them entirely was foolish, house elves would hardly be able to bring harm to the school, especially as they are bound to serve.

"My point in this demonstration was that penetrating the wards of Hogwarts is as simple as being able to work around them, as the house elves do. Now our new ward stops far more complex means of transport than apparation, so whatever the house elves are using is either completely impossible to completely understand or so simple we wouldn't think of it. But the point remains; Hogwarts' wards are quite fallible, and constant vigilance on the part of all staff members is required to keep all threats at bay, even on a good day. After all, nearly anyone can walk right in the front gate when it isn't kept shut, and all the staff gets is advance notice of their presence. So the idea of the wards failing should not be a foreign one, to any of you." Despite his focus on the box, Harry could feel the surprise coming from the professors. It may need to be said, but no one wanted to think of Hogwarts, one of the beacons of safety, as fallible. And yet, if they did, everyone would work all the harder and be that much safer.

After a length pause, Dippet said, "Well, though you make a good point, a more relevant question is how, in this instance, the wards were penetrated. We managed to confirm earlier, through trial by fire, that the ward we put in place functions as intended. Why did it fail?"

"Well that may actually be easy to answer," Albus said, "I theorized that the further an object or person has traveled through…the extra dimensions, the more velocity of sorts it will have, and the more power will be required to keep it at bay. As we are dealing with far more experienced witches and wizards in the field, they likely know a few tricks that we may not think of. As the wards were overwhelmed this time, I believe that they may have simply taken their method a step further and added more dimensions of travel, which resulted in the same problem we initially had of wards designed to stop a lesser form of travel being overwhelmed by a greater one."

"Also, tellingly," Harry added, "There were no personnel sent using this method. Whatever makes it different from what we were dealing with before may also make it unsafe to transport a human."

"And do you think we can stop this method too?" Dippet asked.

"We should, in theory, be able to layer further reinforcements onto the ward we have already created to defend against dimensions as high as we can conceive of. The only reason we haven't yet is because you approved of some experimentation, and decided that probing the attackers' capabilities was worth the risk, especially as the staff would be informed of the danger," Albus replied.

"Of course," Harry said, "We should first deal with this box. I'm inclined to trust a house elf's magic enough to lower my shield and see what I've been preventing from happening. Opinions?"

"Of course we should scan it ourselves!" Galatea exclaimed, "A house elf may be well and good, correct even, but in a matter such as this, we ought to be completely sure!"

Harry restrained himself, understanding how Hermione must feel every time house elves were brought up. "What is the highest, unbreakable law of the house elf, Galatea?"

"The order of their master, but I don't understand—"

"And what have I demonstrated about house elves and their extraordinary capacity to follow that highest law?"

"You have demonstrated that they can work around wards that everyone though were impenetrable, but—"

"No, you are thinking in terms that are far too narrow, Galatea. What did a house elf just do?"

Galatea paused to think. "She apparated inside Hogwarts?"

"No. Think more broadly. One thing that everyone who knows of them _knows,_ for a _fact,_ is that you cannot apparate inside of Hogwarts! So what did a house elf just do? A house elf just did the _impossible._ "

"But…what does that have to do with anything?"

" _Think,_ Galatea. If a house elf can do the impossible, what else can they do, especially at the order of their master, when it benefits their master?"

Galatea was silent as she pondered that.

"I have a shield covering the box we want to analyze, and I can only think of three spells that won't be at best affected by that, and two of those would break the shield as they attempted to detect what was behind it. Yet when I asked a house elf, she knew confidently that it was something even she, with magic designed for servitude and housekeeping, could deal with. Now if you have a reliable way to detect what is under the shield that definitely won't trigger anything in the box, like Mupsy used, then you are free to use it. But one characteristic of detection magic is its bluntness, its propensity to trigger traps and attract notice. I feel much safer removing my shield from the box and placing it over myself than attempting to parse out what the box can do through magic."

There was a lengthy pause as everyone considered Harry's words. Finally, Albus spoke, "And how confident are you that Mupsy's estimation of the danger is correct?"

"I am very confident. The only task I have ever known a house elf to completely fail at is one that required incredible knowledge, unbelievable power, or extreme fortune to pull off. As this only in the bleakest of circumstances requires any of those, I don't believe a house elf would fail."

There was a pause, and Harry heard Galatea shift beside him. Then Dippet's voice came from behind him, "If that is the case, then you should proceed. The distance and an adequate shield should provide cover and time to escape if necessary."

Nodding, Harry took a breath to steel himself, before releasing the magic that held the lightly shimmering blue dome around the box and incanting, "Protego!" as he conjured a similar, but larger shield around the four adults.

For a few long seconds, nothing happened. Then the box seemed to solidify properly as a small, white flag appeared on top of the box.

"The universal sign of a cease-fire," Albus said quietly.

As they waited, nothing more happened. Eventually, it became too much for Harry and he said, "All right. I don't think anything more is going to happen. While this could be a trap, I'm inclined to believe otherwise. Whatever it is though, I don't think it will do anything else unless we actually approach it and investigate."

"And if it is a trap, that is when it springs," Albus said without commitment.

"Yes, but this is the closest we've gotten to communication with the attackers since this whole fiasco began, and I'm curious what they have to say," Harry countered.

"Perhaps it would be wise for some of us to investigate, as others back off in case of emergency," Dippet suggested.

"That's a good idea," Harry said, "I'll certainly investigate. It's likely something related to me, and I need answers."

"I suppose a good question, Perry, is whether anyone else should investigate with you or whether this matter might be…personal?" Albus posed the question almost as a statement. Harry looked at the man, seeing a raised eyebrow and a quick jerk of the eyes toward Galatea.

Of course. Only three of four people here knew that this was, in all likelihood, a message from the future. Hell, it might not be wise for anyone other than him to see it. Albus was useful to have around.

"That's a good point actually," he said, eyeing Dippet in hopes that the man had caught on, "I can think of a few things that could be in there that shouldn't be seen by certain eyes."

Catching a questioning glance from Galatea, Harry merely shrugged. There wasn't a whole lot he could say on that topic that didn't sound sketchy.

"So, I go check the box out, and you three remain quite cautious?" Seeing three hesitant nods, Harry nodded himself. "Then let's do this," he said, almost to himself. He lowered the shield and walked toward the box. It just a normal box, aside from the flag sticking out of it. Just a normal, wooden box that had been sent through the wards of Hogwarts. Harry tried and failed to convince himself it was nothing to worry about. Putting up a brave front because he intellectually knew how good house elves were with magic was one thing. Actually testing himself on the word of house elf was quite another. Come to think of it, if the house elf was to be trusted (and if it couldn't he was in trouble anyway) he didn't actually have to trust the creature. Pranks never killed their victims, and this was far from a prank. So a detection spell wouldn't trigger anything harmful, unless he was already going to…no, he wouldn't think about that. He flicked his wand, casting a general detection spell for enchantments on the box. It came up clean. He cast a spell to determine the physical contents of the box. Something very oddly shaped indeed, and engraved to boot, on top of a piece of paper. By this point, he had reached the box. Turning, he was only slightly surprised to see another shield erected. That made sense, even if it didn't inspire confidence.

"As far as I can tell, there's nothing dangerous in the box. I'm going to open it now," Harry said, "Wish me luck." Then, steeling himself once more, Harry bent down and examined the box. While the lid wasn't immediately apparent, as it seamlessly fit into the wooden construction, it also didn't appear difficult to remove, so Harry grasped it and lifted.

It was about as anticlimactic as could be. Carefully balancing the still-attached flag, Harry set the lid aside and examined the contorted piece of engraved sculpture in front of him. It took up most of the space in the box and had no easily definable shape, though it was roughly spherical. Far from a perfect sphere, however, it had indentations that nearly hollowed the shape out, and more resembled a twisted piece of clay that had been poked and twisted by a bored child than anything, save the complex engravings running over its surface. There seemed to be many straight lines that wrapped all around the various surfaces, with runes whose meaning escaped Harry in various places. Deciding that perhaps the paper he'd detected underneath the object would tell a more thorough story, Harry gently lifted the…thing off of the paper, keeping it out of view, and removed the paper from the box. Harry had a suspicion that whatever-it-was might not be advisable to have in the past, and it never hurt to be safe.

Turning his attention to the paper, Harry read the first nine words printed on it and gasped out loud.

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah, sorry. There's a lot more happening in the background of this episode that I have to figure out, but I can't tell you about without spoiling major plot elements to come, so it's a wee bit short. I am sorry about that.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Yes it's been longer than a week. I was busy and not even always near enough to electricity to continue work. Not to mention that this story is quickly growing very complicated. But more on that later.**

* * *

 _This is a portkey that can travel in time. Take it and our lack of personnel as a gesture of good faith. We never intended to harm you, though it appears you were far more prepared for our search party than we had any reason to suspect._

 _You see, we are a secretive organization that specializes in obscure branches of magic such as time travel, and we aren't the only one. We have been watching and following you for some time now for reasons that are too complex and important to write down on any piece of paper. We are also aware of a competing and very similar organization that has been doing the same. They are the ones who precipitated your current predicament, though even their actions did not end in the desired result, as you no doubt suspect by now. They likely intended to secret you away to their headquarters and either interrogate you or attempt to form you into a pawn for their nefarious purposes._

 _Our subsequent search party has yet to report back, despite their ability to handpick their temporal destination. This indicates only one truly likely scenario; you have captured them successfully despite all the odds and will only return them with communication from us. The only other possible explanation is even less likely, as the party was formed of our most experienced travelers, people who could find their way home even if they were shunted into the void per the traditional temporal interference law. To this end, we have provided you with a temporal portkey which will send at least six people from 31 July 1939 to 31 July 2027. If you choose not to travel with our party, we would appreciate some form of communication from you, so that we may attempt to proceed from there._

 _The dates of travel are designed primarily to ensure that our package reaches you before its built in departure, and to keep your aging on a fixed yearly cycle. We have exercised extreme caution because while we do have evidence that you are setting up to be a professor at Hogwarts, we needed to be sure that someone had a chance to call you professor before the departure date, as you personally being called a professor triggered the arrival of this package. Once we had exercised as much caution as we reasonably could, there was little point in bringing you back before a full year had transpired._

 _We dearly hope that you will receive this letter in good spirit and heed its words._

 _-Consortium_

Harry could hardly comprehend everything that had just been dropped on him. It made a whole lot of sense, and confirmed several suspicions he'd barely even thought to himself, but seeing it all written out still stunned him. And then there was the middle bit, which made absolutely no sense from what little he could work out. All the 'captives' he'd managed to subdue with help from the Hogwarts staff had promptly disappeared. Where they still out there somewhere? And why hadn't they reported back, if they could choose a temporal destination?

Hearing a cleared throat from the direction of the professors, Harry turned. He saw Albus looking at him with questions clear in his eyes. "I…I don't think you should see the contents of this box, for the very reasons you feared," he began, "and I also think that my contract will need some slight re-negotiating. I just got…a ticket out of here, you might say, that's good in a year."

Even from a distance, Harry could see the bare shock in Albus's eyes, and even Dippet's to an extent. For a moment no one knew what to say. Then Dippet spoke.

"So…this ticket…you intend to take it? When exactly does it…well when will you be leaving?"

Harry glanced instinctively down at his watch. The stellar bodies swirling around told him that it was 2:37 + 35 seconds in the afternoon. He knew it was correct, having cast a few spells to realign it with local time the day before. He also knew that it was useless to look at his watch; he'd merely looked out of habit when the topic of time was mentioned. And yet, the time reached 40 past the minute, Dippet called out in alarm.

"Someone has just entered the wards! They just walked right in, and they appear to have something with a very subtle enchantment with them. We need to get to the gate, and quickly!"

All other thoughts forgotten, the four of them rushed to the gate as quickly as they could. It took approximately three minutes to get there, and they _really_ weren't sure to make of what they found there.

Just as they got into spell range, they noticed that the banner floating over the single intruder's head read, in large friendly letters, "I COME IN PEACE."

Wasting no time heeding the advice of a curmudgeonly old man, Harry silently disarmed the man before anyone else thought to get a spell off. The sign floated to the ground, but that was when he knew that something was truly off about the situation. The man had been loosely holding his wand in one hand over his head, part of his 'hands up in surrender' act. But when Harry reached out and caught the wand, he was holding it by the tip. Expelliarmous, being magic designed by a rather intelligent person, was designed to land the opponent's wand in your hand so that it could immediately be used. In other words, handle first. Harry was intimately familiar with this mechanic of the spell, and knew from experimentation that the mechanism behind this merely flipped the wand 180º in the air. So the man had been holding his wand by the tip, a position that left one horribly vulnerable to your opponent in a fight.

"Hello, Mr. Hauter. It's good to see that you're safe; even if I was informed you would be intact upon my arrival. I've been informed that you have just received a package from the Consortium, something we believe to be a trap, and was instructed to arrive at precisely the time you glanced down at your watch exactly," he glance up at his own timepiece, "three minutes and seventeen seconds ago. I fully surrender myself to you in the hope that I can tell you how to leave here without the aid of that package, and also in an effort to create a cordial relationship with the…oh for love of Merlin, with _you,_ because the organization I represent is extremely interested in you." The man stopped and took a large breath. "So…may I proceed? I must warn you that only Mr. Hauter can hear what I have to say, lest I be ejected into limbo like those before me."

Harry glanced back at the other professors. They seemed to be looking to him for guidance. "He…he's not openly hostile. We may as well listen." No one relaxed, although it was clear their tension had eased slightly.

Waving the man to follow them, Harry turned and led the way back to the castle, his mind racing the whole time. This messenger hadn't mentioned the box, so he probably wasn't with the…Consortium, did they call themselves? Yet he had behaved docilely, even to the point of practically offering his wand up to the enemy. Was this a trap? Was this a legitimate offer of peace? If so, the note from the Consortium was at best a biased interpretation of a conflict that was more shades of grey than anything. At worst, it was an outright lie. Harry stayed far away from politics, but as an auror he got plenty of tastes of the inner machinations of conflicts as they were perceived from the political sphere. The realization that Voldemort was rare in his true and unarguable evil had been a stunning one, though the days when he was young and naïve were mostly gone. He still did his best, but he'd long ago realized just how difficult and complicated that was.

So what was this new conflict he'd found himself immersed in? And why was _he_ of all people the one who got caught up in it? He checked regularly, and he'd been nothing more than an ordinary auror for nearly 30 years. So why else would the hero of the Second British Wizard Uprising be important? So far as he knew, Hermione would be a better choice; she always understood the complicated nitty-gritty details that flew over his head. She understood how _house elves_ apparated of all things. Harry still couldn't get much further than 'they use less dimensions instead of more' before becoming massively confused. So why would he get pulled into a temporal conflict?

Coming to no meaningful conclusion before they reached the castle, Harry was shaken out of his thoughts by the messenger speaking again. "We will need some privacy, if you please. I can discuss very little without being ejected back into limbo, and I would prefer to stay in this time until my designated exit window."

Deciding to get the biggest logical problem out of the way first, Harry asked, "And why haven't I been ejected? I've said plenty about who I am and how I got here." At this, the man's eyes grew very wide indeed.

"But that would mean…you're already experiencing…oh dear." The man cleared his throat before continuing. "Well, one thing now makes much more sense to me. I was nearly told…something before my departure. I now know what it was. Suffice to say, Mr. Hauter, that you are not even remotely average anymore. You have done a fine job of holding back all these years, but now the…pressure has become too much. I cannot discuss this more in present company," he gestured to the professors who had yet to leave.

"And can you prove yourself?" Harry demanded.

The man leaned close to Harry and whispered into his ear, "You are Harry James Potter, the Chosen One, the Head Auror, and proud father of three, in no particular order. As for proof of my goodwill, in three seconds you will need to duck, roll to your left, and stay balled up for one second before standing."

Harry was confused for most of three seconds, before realization struck at the exact right time. He ducked, rolled to his left, and nearly stood up before remembering the final piece of advice. He heard something irritably pass over his head before hesitantly standing. What he saw was chaos. In front of him he saw a niffler with a fishing rod-like device attached to its head. On the end of the line was something very shiny that swung back and forth at random intervals. This had apparently been thrown from behind him. Turning, he saw first the messenger, standing well out of the niffler's way, then Albus, Galatea, and Dippet behind a shield, looking shocked. And then when he looked the direction the niffler had come from, he saw…the man from the hospital wing the day before. George. The man had a niffler in one hand, a wand in the other, and looked wilder than most magical beasts Harry had tangled with.

"Um…hi," said Harry nervously, "what are you doing here?"

"There's an intruder! That man behind you is an intruder, get out of the way!"

Harry suddenly realized the messenger was standing precisely behind him. Whirling, he demanded, "How did you know?"

"I cannot say in present company, but you of all people should know the answer to that, Mr. _Hauter."_

"You…you knew it was coming because you heard about it in the future? But the only person who'd be able to tell you that if what you say is true would be…"

The man smiled. "And now you see why I came in peace. I desperately need to tell you what you are, and why you are here. You need to know, and because we failed to bring you peacefully to our headquarters and as a result you thought we had attacked you. But if you give me a chance to explain in good faith, I can hopefully clear up that misunderstanding!" He was almost pleading as he finished.

"So you saved me to gain my trust?"

"Yes!"

"And why should I believe that you didn't simply know George was coming by natural means?"

"Actually, I made very sure that this man had no idea that I summoned George. No one except me could have known he was coming." Albus put in as he almost casually severed the rope holding the shiny object away from the niffler, calming the beast,

Harry looked questioningly at Albus, but the man seemed very sure and truthful.

"Well," he said at last, "I guess I'll listen to your story. But I have plenty of reason to doubt you, so no funny business."

"Of course," the man replied gratefully.

Harry looked at Albus, once again trying to communicate with his eyes. Albus probably got the gist it, and quietly spoke to Dippet and Galatea before turning and walking toward George. Harry turned, gesturing for the messenger to go in front of him. As they walked away, Harry felt a variation of a very familiar spell hit his back. Aurors often had need of something similar to a muggle wire, and yet every criminal meeting of any significance in his time required full submission to an extensive scan before entry. Once upon a time, a subtle confundus would have sufficed, but no longer. So a spell had been developed around the turn of the century which could be activated by the wizard who had been hit, allowing full audio transmission to the caster. The only real development had been the severe dampening of the magical signature pre-activation, allowing the spell to foil scans. So Albus's version would do for Harry's purposes. It would prevent listeners unless he needed them.

Thus equipped, Harry was almost entirely unsurprised to find himself once more standing in front of the Room of Requirement. "I suppose you would know about a place like this, as well informed as you are," he commented.

The man laughed, "Well yes, it is one of the things we didn't need your input on. It's actually one of the entry requirements for our organization, or at least the English section. Any applicant must have discovered and understood, in at least some capacity, Rowena Ravenclaw's forgotten ballroom."

"Wait what?" Harry spluttered, "This was a _ballroom?"_

"Yes, Rowena didn't do anything halfway…she had a class of perhaps 40 students who she knew well enough to write letters to personally, yet she instead created a book and quill capable of tracking them down anywhere in the world they might end up after one of them was on a vacation she hadn't heard of. This ballroom is another example of that desire for increased functionality. Her additions to this school, especially the ones that the other founders helped with in one way or another, are quite impressive."

"I…see…" Harry managed. He decided to change the subject. "So which configuration should we use? I've known this room to create anything magic can manage, and stretch the limits of geometrical probability. What else haven't I heard of that it can do?"

"Well, it can create a passage nearly anywhere in the world, thanks to the school's ley lines."

"No, I was wondering about things that aren't documented knowledge."

"Oh, right…you're from after the battle. Well it does do a rather nice chaise lounge I've grown fond of, how about that?"

"That works, I suppose. But did you just forget that I'm from after the Battle of Hogwarts?"

"I was born in the year 1673, Mr. Potter. It's quite an easy mistake to make."

"Oh…"

As they talked, the man had been pacing in front of the stretch of wall that typically created an entrance. He finished, and this time the portal was a nondescript wooden door with a fine finish that smelled of cherries. As the man led Harry inside, he saw a small room with a few couches, cushioned armchairs, and a small table in the middle. Harry also felt the unfriendly prickling of a ward as he began to pass through the door. Noticing Harry's hesitation, the man said, "It keeps the house elves out. And it will also keep any temporal travelers from intruding. It's only a small improvement on the ward you fashioned for the school, actually. You did an outstanding job when you designed it."

Harry performed a brief scan of the ward and found that it did indeed resemble the ward Hermione had designed against house elves, as well as the one he'd helped create the day before. "Thanks…I guess." As he pulled the door closed behind him, Harry tried to ignore the feeling that he was in a cage. He was hardly any more helpless inside than out; he couldn't have traveled through the dimensions that were blocked anyway.

He still felt trapped.

The man began speaking, almost as if he were trying to ease Harry's discomfort, "My name is Bartholomew Charles, in modern English vernacular. As I said, I was born in 1673, and lived in my own time until 1697, when I vague hints I had discovered led me to the organization I now serve."

"What is your organization, exactly, and how do they relate to the Consortium?" Harry interrupted. The man-or Bartholomew-suddenly grew pale.

"The only reason you could know that name…"

"Yes. They got a message through first. I imagine that's the one improvement to the wards you were going to suggest? Something to keep out anyone but you?"

"Where is this message now?"

"It was left behind in the chaos when you arrived."

"And what did it say?"

"There was a portkey for traveling through time, and a rather revealing note. They mentioned your organization quite a bit, actually."

"So that's how…but it doesn't matter. I have lowered the house elf ward. You must bring that message here at once!"

"Straight to the enemy the message urged me never to trust?"

"You would trust a portkey that you couldn't possibly understand?"

Harry thought on that for several seconds. "Mipsy-no Mupsy!"

To his slight amusement, two house elves appeared in front of him. "Yes, Professor Hauter sir?"

Harry rubbed his forehead wearily. "Mupsy, could you retrieve that box I had you examine earlier please? And Mipsy…some tea would be very welcome right now."

"Yes, sir!" the two elves exclaimed in unison, both disappearing with their typical crack. Harry looked back at Bartholomew only to see his lips twitching.

"Oh, laugh it up! My friend once suggested that Goblin names were all the same, but that was before he really knew about house elves. I swear that whoever thought up their names wanted as much confusion as possible whenever a large population was present!"

Bartholomew finally let out a snicker. "Their names, assigned at birth, actually did originate from a similar purpose. When house elves were still independent enough to war amongst themselves it served a family well to have names to similar enough that no enemy could separate only one elf from a group by name. Most wizards were too lazy to do anything more difficult than separating the families. Here, there is a spell to counter the confusion the similar names are designed and enchanted to create. And even with that measure in place, you still managed to find two elves with such similar names…I must confess to a great deal of amusement."

Harry glared at the man.

The elves returned, one bearing the box, and the other a tea tray. Setting both on the table between Harry and Bartholomew, the two bowed and left.

Harry continued to glare.

Bartholomew poured some tea.

Harry continued to glare.

Bartholomew peered into the box. His mouth fell open in amazement.

Harry was intrigued enough to stop glaring.

"The note is probably stuffed down the side somewhere; I wasn't paying very much attention when I put it back." Bartholomew nodded, but continued looking.

"I don't think I really want to reach into that box. It is…a very familiar design created to cut off any unauthorized limbs attempting to exit it. If you would?"

Harry, slightly shocked, nonetheless obliged, getting out first the letter, then the portkey itself. Bartholomew stared in amazement at the portkey. Harry couldn't blame him really, the man was used to defined rules of time travel, and it sounded like those rules were being expanded. Harry could hardly believe it himself, and he barely understood the basics of the higher dimensions. What must it be like to someone who understood the intricacies? He'd have to ask Hermione, he supposed. Although that presented a problem.

"So, if you don't want me to trust this, how am I going to get back home? I presume your ride doesn't have any spare room."

The man shook himself out of his stupor. "You are quite correct. Normally I would be able to offer you a lift, but you are a rather unique case, it seems. The report from the team who attempted to transport you earlier is confused at best, because they lost you in limbo. Nothing much makes sense to a human mind in limbo. So we deliberated, and then you showed up on our doorstep with a suggestion; we tell you how to travel through limbo, and through time, and let you form a team of your own for the journey. That way you can have people you know and trust helping you, something that is surprisingly essential for the ritual."

"It's a ritual? What kind of ritual are we talking about? I tend to distrust rituals as a rule!" Harry had good reason, too. He understood that benign rituals existed, but he had come across too many malign rituals to trust any without serious investigation.

"It's quite a complex ritual, though the most harm that can come from it is missing your destination. The team you interfered with apparently ended up on a deserted island. They didn't bother to check the time period, but it is worth noting that they were aiming for our base, which exists in limbo."

"I thought you said that nothing makes sense in limbo? How could you build a base there?"

"We didn't. But someone did, and they also found a way to make the nonsensicality generally logical. As such, we currently have the upper hand in the conflict."

"You never did tell me who 'we' is."

"The name matters very little. We call ourselves the Thaumaturgi when we have need of a title, but what matters more is our purpose. We exist to study all of magical history, and to understand the things that many will never even think to wonder about. Currently, we have been presented with a mystery: you. So now we are going to great lengths to study you. I do apologize for the trouble we have caused you, and can do very little to right that wrong. The most I can offer you is that you are hardly the first historical figure we studied in this manner, and had no reason to believe you would be different until you disappeared into the ether. It was most distressing." Bartholomew paused to let that soak in.

"You…were trying to study me?" Harry asked.

"Yes. Had events gone according to plan, you would have woken up in our base, been questioned and possibly asked to perform some simple magic, then placed right back where we left you. We may even have left your memories, as the Consortium has taken an alarming interest in you. Then you confounded all of our expectations and vanished."

That…changed things. Even if he was being lied to from both sides, Bartholomew still offered more opportunities to distrust him. In the long run, that might be useful. The enemy who invites investigation prepares for it, as the saying went. But something Harry had discovered was that most often they got touchy faster when you were on to something they didn't like, and he could use that. And Bartholomew also had a very good point about portkeys. Harry knew that lesson all too well from the Tournament.

Resolving to at trust Bartholomew and his organization of…Thaumaturgi? Harry simply said, "Well then. I happen to know several people who would be excellent at investigating mysteries. So let's get cracking with the explanations, and then maybe I can figure out a way to bring them back here."

Looking quite relieved, Bartholomew replied, "Thank you. You can't know how worried I was, even with the assurances of your future self. At any rate, you may want a piece of paper for this, it is by no means a simple matter to travel through the fifth dimension…"

And as Harry conjured paper and a pencil, Bartholomew began to describe the five man ritual that was supposed to be the only way to travel through time. Harry could hardly believe it, even as he wrote down the details. A participant designated to simply look for and correct mistakes? Another to oversee the whole ritual? And the language of incantation was just obtuse. It felt complex, powerful, and just…old. There were pieces that reminded him of Latin, and perhaps Greek, but he felt a very sudden need for Hermione's explanations. And then Bartholomew was done.

Standing, he said, "Now, I will leave the summoning of your friends to you, but I leave you with one last piece of advice. You should keep a copy of those notes hidden somewhere in this time, perhaps even in this very room, because many things can go wrong. But on that note, unless you have further questions, I must take my leave. I will be around until you leave, if you need me, but I must be cautious and stay away for the most part."

"You're just leaving? Just like that? You haven't even explained why I'm involved in this mess!" Harry wasn't going to let Bartholomew leave until he at least had an answer to that question.

"Harry, you know more than enough to work it out for yourself, though I urge you try not to. If you know before you leave this time, even we don't know what the consequences would be. When you told us to visit you, you wouldn't tell us."

Harry leapt out of his chair, "And what if knowing would help me avoid trouble? Albus Dumbledore in my time once said something very similar to me, and in the end I'm not convinced he was right!"

"Mr. Potter, I can tell you no more. If you must know, you will have to figure out the riddle yourself. But I have sworn an oath, and I will hold to it."

Harry slumped back into his chair. An oath wasn't necessarily binding, if one didn't use magic to bind it, but he wouldn't force a man to go against his word. Reaching into his pocket, Harry pulled out Bartholomew's wand.

"You were holding this backwards," he stated.

"I was," Bartholomew replied.

"Was that an instruction as well?"

"No. I did my own research on you, and discovered that you remain fond of disarming to this day. I decided there was no faster way to gain your trust, or at least your ear, than to give up my wand in a manner you would instantly understand."

Harry hummed to himself. "Well, thank you, I suppose. You've been a great help, no matter what you can't tell me."

"It gratifies me to hear that. You are most welcome,"

Harry flipped the wand, which he had been holding by the handle, and stood. Offering the handle end to Bartholomew, he looked the man straight in the eyes. As Bartholomew took his wand back, he maintained eye contact. Harry could detect no deceit or malice in those eyes. As Bartholomew left without another word, Harry wondered whether that really meant he could trust the man.

Whatever the case, he had work to do.

* * *

 **A/N: And here ends another chapter. I have perhaps one more chapter's content planned out, after which I'm going to have to start formally planning this story so that it maintains whatever cohesion I managed to put into it. The problem with that is that all of the things I could put in here are rather cliffhanger-y, and I would probably be taking a lengthy hiatus as I settle into college (again, because life is complicated) and plan the middle part of the story arc. So if I get a couple reviewers who really want another chapter, I can post it, but I probably won't if no one reviews (as per frikkin' usual) or people ask me not to post that chapter until closer to the cliffhangers getting resolved.**

 **On a much brighter note, there will be another story coming out in the interim. I don't know whether I'll be able to schedule releases for it yet, but it's a Hogwarts years fic, so the structure and planning will be much easier. This means that even if my motivation drops, I'll have something to base the story off of, and many more places to look to renew my motivation. At any rate, the other story is (a very small) part of why this chapter was later than usual, so it will be posted right away. And before you all think that I worked on something else over this story, I did so because I needed time to think on exactly how much was going to happen in this chapter, and how much was going to be saved for later.**

 **And also to think about how ReZero will end. I MEAN SHUT UP I WAS TOTALLY THINKING ABOUT OLDE RITUELS 24/7!**

 **Anyway...I've said what I need to.**

 **Best of wishes,**

 **feauxen**


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